Xander of the Red Robes
by Diresquirrel
Summary: Jesse bought the costumes.  It was too late to change into something else, and so Xander was stuck with face paint and hourglass contact lenses.  Slightly AU for Buffy.  Halloween fic for Halloween.
1. Chapter 1

_Yes, I know I've been ignoring my other stories. Well, not really ignoring so much as being stuck between real life (namely a sick batch of farm animals that need near constant tending), too many ideas, and not enough time. I'm working on them, really, and some of them will be updated really soon. I mean it this time._

_This was something that's been stuck in my head for years and I finally just had to write it down. Needless to say, it's AU, with Ethan showing up the Halloween before Buffy arrives. The impetus for this is that I haven't really written anything using Jesse, and SpaceMary has been bugging me for a Xander-gets-super-powers story for some time now. And knowing me, it would never be exactly like she was expecting. I didn't want to do a typical Super-Xander story, so I needed to go my way and this is what I came up with. Also, since it's October, I felt it was the right time to start in for that ol' Buffy fanfic cliche._

_And thusly I present my new story. I hope at least some of you enjoy it._

_I do not own DragonLance (Weis and Hickman) nor do I own Buffy (Joss). Just saying._

* * *

><p>Ethan Rayne was rather excited, only a week to Halloween and it was going to be amazing. He had his finely formed plaster bust, his finely enchanted stock of costumes and enough herbs and candles to open up a wiccan supply shop. There wasn't any real rhyme or reason for him choosing the small city of Sunnydale for his little prank, but there was just something that called to him about it. He had just hung up the last of his 43 Dracula costumes when the front door chimed despite the fact that no one had passed by the brightly lit windows. Ethan turned around to see an old man in a worn gray suit and an equally worn fedora walk in and peruse the costumes, muttering to himself. He had a full head of long white hair and an equally snowy and long beard that he stroked every so often in thought. Occasionally he would scratch his head with the tip of his cane as if it was too much trouble to reach with his hand.<p>

"Hello there, good sir," Ethan greeted, fake smile in place. He walked swiftly with the cunning grace of a salesman to the old man's side. "How can this humble shopkeeper do for you today?"

The man glanced around, flipping through he racks of costumes one by one, muttering to himself about the quality and fitness of each to his goals. "Hmm..." he said as he looked at a couple suits of armor. "I'll need some changes made," the bearded man said.

"Changes?" Ethan asked.

"Yes," the old man said, handing over a few costumes. He dropped a list of changes on top. "Someone will be back to pick them up."

"Having a party, old man?" Ethan inquired as he glanced at the list. The man grinned, looking up at him with an odd twinkle in his blue-gray eyes.

"A party?" the old man repeated in a bemused and partially confused tone. "Oh yes, there'll be a party the likes of which the 'Dale has never seen before." He turned and pointed to a corner of the shop. "When you're done, hang them on that rack in the shadowy corner."

Sunlight poured in on the corner in question, giving the illusion of peacefulness that Sunnydale days were known for.

"That corner's in bright light," Ethan said, stating the obvious that the old man apparently hadn't noticed.

"Ah, but it will be nice and shaded by the time school is out," the old man said with a smirk. The man reached into his sport-coat and pulled out a large unfolded leather wallet. He opened up the billfold and set three twenties on the counter. "As a deposit."

Ethan glanced down at the bills and quickly slipped them into the register. When he was done, the old man was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

><p>Ethan waited nearly a week and no one came for the costumes. In fact, no one even looked at the costumes in that shadowy little corner. Then, the afternoon of Halloween not even two minutes before Ethan was about to close shop, a young skinny teen picked them up, telling the Chaos Mage that they were exactly what he needed. The boy bought a few accessories and paid off the rest of the bill.<p>

He watched the boy run off, his purchases tucked into his shopping bag. Ethan shook his head and turned the sign from "Open" to "Closed."

It was nearly showtime.

* * *

><p>"I don't know guys," Willow said, holding up her costume to her body. "That's a little..."<p>

Willow made a few motions to emphasize that the outfit Jesse bought for Willow was more than a little skimpy. Not that it was indecent, just more skin than Willow was used to showing and in stranger places as well. Willow was not one of the most self-assured individuals in Sunnydale and the thought of going outside her shell was more difficult than one might expect for a girl her age.

Xander, however, was looking at the outfit with a different sort of trepidation.

"Jesse, how much did you spend on this," he asked, holding up with heavy cotton robe. It was crimson, bright and trimmed with a black band with golden runes. It was high quality and probably cost a pretty penny. Then there was the real steel dagger, the leather belt and the leather belt pouch. Things like this didn't come cheap. His friends knew that Xander was sensitive to what things cost, not having had that much growing up as his more wealthy friends did. Willow, with her globe trotting, psychologist parents practically had the house and credit cards to herself. Jesse, the son of more attentive doctors, still had a larger monthly allowance than Xander did in a year.

"Not that much, try it on," Jesse said, deflecting the question. Xander looked at his friend warily, but his eyes kept being drawn back to the red robes. Jesse handed him three more small packages. "Face-paint, hair dye and contacts."

Glancing at the label, Xander's eyes widened. "Golden face-paint? I'm going as _Raistlin_?"

"Yup, and I'm going as Caramon and Willow as Tika," Jesse explained.

"I am?" asked Willow, with a confused look on her face.

"You are," stated Jesse flatly, as he turned her head away from the closet that held her old standby: the Ghost. "And you are not sneaking out of this. You both promised that we could go with matching costumes this year."

"When you said DragonLance, I was thinking of going as Sturm and you as Tanis," Xander said. He'd already planned on how to make the costume too: cardboard and tinfoil. "Isn't Raistlin _your_ favorite character?"

"Well, yeah," Jesse said, not making eye contact, "but Cordy isn't going to look my way with me wearing red robes and carrying a staff, no matter how cool the character is. I'm going for the Warrior Look."

"You're a skinny white nerd, Jesse," Xander reminded him. "Just like me."

"Not all warriors have big bulging muscles," Jesse protested.

"Yeah, they're called elves and last time I checked, your ears were pretty rounded," Xander snarked as he stuffed the costume back into its bag, knowing he'd lost the debate and it was far too late to change things at this point.

"Whatever," Jesse said, waving his friend off. "Just be there."

* * *

><p>That night Raistlin glanced around at the strange landscape before him. Houses, similar in style to those of his home village, yet so different, lined a street that had been paved not with cobblestones, but some kind of dark substance that had been flattened and painted with white and yellow stripes. Glancing at the arrows drawn on the pavement, he wondered what could have happened that people would be so incompetent and idiotic as to need a reminder of what side of the road to walk on. Some disaster on the scale of Istar, no doubt.<p>

The red robed mage glanced up at the sky, shocked to find Lunitari missing, and only Solinari. Just last night the Red Moon was gibbous, and for it to have vanished...either Lunitari had come to walk amongst the mortals or he, himself had left Krynn. Judging by the strange contraptions about him, like those rolling down the road with no horse to pull it, or resting like wagons on the sides of the road, Raistlin suspected the latter. And that didn't even begin to take into account the bright lights on either side of the street which were clearly not fire.

Small creatures ran around causing havoc, more than a few looked like goblins of various skin colors, red and green being the most prominent, while still other, larger creatures ran around. The one thing that had yet to cease was his vision of death. All were cursed in his hourglass eyes and all he saw was decay and death.

Some of the creatures noticed him, so with a few muttered words, Raistlin slammed his staff down on the strange pavement and called out a familiar phrase. "_Shirak_!"

Light, nearly as bright as the sun during the day, shone from the crystal topping his staff. The creatures shied away, some instinct telling them to flee. Raistlin glanced beyond and saw some creatures not in decay. Their skin was pale, sallow, even those with dark skin; their brow ridges more prominent than a human's should be; and their mouths filled with bloodied fangs. And in the light of the Staff of Magius brought wisps of smoke from their skin, causing them to fall back amidst hisses of pain as their skin darkened and seared like meat in a frying pan.

"_Ah_, you fear the light." Raistlin said, pausing to cough before looking them in the eyes. "I know not what creatures you are, but you are not like the others."

"Kill him," commanded one of them, the voice nearly human, but warped by the fangs.

Raistlin whispered a few arcane phrases and missiles forged from pure magic flew from his fingers, impaling the creatures. It seemed to stagger them, but had little lasting effect. The closer they came to him, or rather The Staff of _Magius_, the more their skin smoked. Within a foot, their skin started to burn. Cocking an eyebrow, he whispered a few more words and fiddled with some component from his pouch, sending arrows of flame streaming at them as if shot from a bow. Though it was still a relatively weak spell, it had the desired effect and sent the creatures cowering to ground as the flames consumed them. There was a fear behind their screams, a primal fear far beyond that of your average creature's fear of flame. There was no instinct to put it out, only panicked flailing until there was nothing but wisps of dust flowing into the darkness. The other three creatures ran off in fear, the smoke ceasing to billow from their skin the farther they ran, retreating from its recondite radiance.

His self satisfied smirk did not last long as a frantic coughing fit broke out, sending the wizard to his knees. He held himself up with his staff, still giving off light to the surroundings. Some property of the spectrum made the attacking creatures shun him, giving him time to recover. Just as he was about to pull himself upright, strong, familiar hands pulled him to his feet.

"There you go, Raistlin," a familiar voice said as the hands let go.

"Hello brother," Raistlin said, not looking at his "savior" to cover the anger he felt at being treated like a possession. "I was surprised to not see you there instantly when I was first attacked."

He turned and stared for a moment.

"Caramon," he pondered as he took in his brother's odd change in appearance. "You look..._skinny_."

His brother had the good graces to blush and glance away, but there was no denying that he had lost a significant amount of body mass. But the embarrassment didn't last long. Shaking his head and thinking of memories long past, he glanced at his brother, his twin. In the common lore of Ansalon, twins were said to be one person, each possessing traits that the other needed to be whole. Caramon was the one the ladies always looked at. He was the strong one, the healthy one. Raistlin was the one with the cunning, the quick handed reflexes and an unparallelled mind and wit, not to mention a prodigious talent for the arcane. Caramon was the slow one, while not stupid, he did not possess the bright, sharp wit and intellect that served Raistlin so well. Raistlin was physically weak, sickly from birth; he only survived infancy due to the constant care of his elder half-sister, and his continued survival depended on Caramon's muscle.

"I was worried about you," Caramon said. "Tika is here too, and we were fighting vampires."

"Ah, vampires, so that is what they were," Raistlin pondered. "Very different in appearance from what I have read."

"Well, I think so, they were drinking people's blood. We had to cut off their heads," Caramon commented. "How did you...?"

"Fire works quite well," Raistlin elaborated simply. Caramon stopped short.

"Raistlin, where are we?" Caramon asked, his tone showing off his fear of the unknown and his reliance on the mind of his brother.

"That I do not know," he admitted, something the red robed mage never wanted to do. To admit that he was not knowledgeable on a subject was to admit that he was his brother's equal, at least on some level. And Raistlin hated that. He gritted his teeth and refused to make eye contact with the taller Majere.

"Well, uh, let's go see Tika and figure out what's going on," Caramon suggested.

"Yes, brother, because barmaids are so wise in the ways of interplanar travel," the mage replied scathingly, his voice a rasp, broken by coughs and dark laughter. "Yes, I'm sure she could just wave her fry pan and we'll go back to Krynn, pretty as you please."

"Well, she's pretty smart, but I don't think she could really do that," Caramon commented.

Raistlin stared at his brother for a long moment.

"I was being sarcastic."

Caramon blushed and scratched his cheek in embarrassment.

"Oh." he said.

* * *

><p>Later, towards the middle of the night, neither brother wanting to sleep in such a strange place, Raistlin was reading in his book, memorizing the next day's spells. Tika, exhausted by the battle, was sleeping with her back to a tree with Raistlin to her left and his brother to her right. Her sword was unsheathed in her lap and her shield bound to her arm for quick use should she be jostled by either brother. Caramon, nominally on watch, took in everything about the strange town that was so different from Solace or any other town they saw in Ansalon. There was the light pitter-patter of bare feet on stone, and Caramon looked up to see a beautiful figure in the distance. She was blonde, lithe and had a build that could only be compared to beauties such as Marilyn Monroe and Frazetta's women. She walked out of the shadows, just barely into view and beckoned Caramon towards her.<p>

Caramon is many things, but wise and possessed of a strong will are not among them. The figure and the infernal powers she possessed were nearly unchallenged in their enchanting of his psyche. Numbly, the tall man climbed to his feet and walked haltingly forward. All he could see was her, and for some reason, his brother, Tika, neither of them mattered. She was all he needed and thanks to her enchantment, that was all he needed to know. Her fingers drew him forward, calling him closer and closer.

He had made it half way before glowing green arrows flew straight and true, hitting the voluptuous female in the chest and face, melting skin as acid worked its way deep into her body, the scent of melting flesh wafting into the night air. In a fit of rage, the Succubus shed her disguise and attacked in earnest. Hands turned into claws, her tailbone grew into a full tail that whipped around with her displeasure; her feet turned into cloven hooves that clapped angrily on the strange pavement. Finally, two bright red leathery wings grew from her back that threatened to blow Raistlin over with their power.

"You should have never done that!" the infernal creature snarled, showing off her fangs.

"It is unwise to ensnare the mind of my allies, demon," the mage in question replied, his fingers already moving towards his components pouch. Pig grease slathered on his hands, he spoke the magic word and flames flew out in a semicircle around his outstretched palms, catching the succubus off guard. While startling, they had little effect against such a creature, but it gave Caramon enough of a chance to shake off the charm effect. Tika, coming seemingly out of nowhere, slammed the Succubus from behind with her shield, sending the infernal seductress to her knees.

"Take that, ye vile skank!" she snarled as she bashed the creature once more with her shield.

Caramon shook his head, saw the true form of the creature before him, and promptly moved to cut off her head. The creature rolled to the side, and pulling up its innate magical abilities vanished instantly. Caramon could hear its screech of pain and fury off in the distance, but pulled back to protect his brother and girlfriend.

* * *

><p>In the next few hours, they slew a large number of demons, goblins, and vampires, even a few ghouls and one mummy. But everything changed with the coming of the sun. The three natives of Solace watched in horror as many of the people changed as soon as the sun hit them. Goblins turned back into children; monsters transformed back into what they were before. Only the corpses remained unchanged.<p>

Caramon stepped back in horror as he realized he had been slaughtering children under a magical curse. Bile rose in his throat and he went to his knees. The sun caught his arm, and he changed, the sword and armor transforming into fragile replicas of the real thing. He looked around in horror at the scene around him and ran blindly away, unfocused on his allies or enemies. Tika heaved, the remnants of her previous meal spilling out onto the sidewalk. She stumbled into the sun and the same thing happened, her closes transformed into fragile, weak facsimile of the real thing. She collapsed against one of the steel lamp posts that ran along each street in this strange town and sobbed.

Raistlin was not quite sure what to do. That, more than anything, disturbed him. Logic, based on his observations suggested that he too, would transform as soon as his skin touched the sun's rays. That prompted the question of what was the true form: his present self or the human he would transform into, and even that was an assumption that he would transform into a human. Clinging to the shadows, he pondered the possibilities and decided, possibly for the first time since his Test, to do something selfless. If the person he transformed into no longer had his sight, his _Curse_, then Raistlin was willing to sacrifice himself.

Pushing himself to his feet, he walked slowly, nearly stumbling, moving forward like an old man. Instead of just letting the sun just touch a small part of his body, he walked tall into full sun as it streamed across the horizon and down the street. It blinded him like no sun had ever done before. He had seen plenty of sunrises in his time as a mercenary and growing up in the treetop village of Solace. This felt different on his golden skin; it felt like a temporary cleansing of his ills. Raistlin propped himself up with the Staff of Magius and felt the world vanish.

* * *

><p>Xander Harris found himself in the morning light wielding a plastic stick with a glassy plastic bauble on the end. The sun was bright and memories poured into his head that he knew weren't his. He shook his head to clear them from his mind and turned towards where Willow was sobbing. He leaned down, resting a hand on her shoulder.<p>

"Willow," he rasped, the sound of his voice rough and gravely to his ears, like he had just swallowed a wire brush. "Let's get you home."

He held out a hand to the sobbing girl, only to snatch it away as he saw not Willow, but a rotting corpse that sobbed in her place. Mats of hair were torn from her scalp, and bones shown through her skin in places. Xander heaved, but recovered himself.

"Willow?" he asked, not sure if he wanted to know if he was right or not.

The corpse looked up to match his gaze. Xander took an unsteady step backwards, catching himself only with the plastic walking stick. Willow jumped to her feet as she noticed Xander start to lose balance; slipping his arm over her shoulder, the redhead tried to pick him up, only for him to fall into a nasty coughing fit. His entire body seemed to shake with each expectorate breath and his hand reached for her and missed. Blood flecked his lips on the next cough as he fell to the ground in a heap. He heard Willow calling his name, but it was lost with the rest of the world as everything slipped away.

* * *

><p>Thanks be to GreyWizard for all thy help.<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

Xander awoke in the hospital. There was the steady beep-beep-beep of the machines-that-went-_Ping!_ and the groan of the IV machine as it pumped saline into his veins. In the next room over, a crazy man was talking about washing his shirts, but that he couldn't do that, but that he needed to. Nurses bustled around giving medication, caring for needs and otherwise catering to both patient and doctor.

"Your son seems to have suffered a severe allergic reaction to a substance in his face paint last night," the doctor said. The miasma over the town which would later be known as "the Sunnydale Effect" was hard at work enforcing preconceptions, rationalizations and outright falsehoods and the elder Harrises were eating it up. They nodded in all the right places, frowned at all the right times. "His cough seemed to subside with some of the medication we gave him, but the discoloration of his skin and eyes has had no change."

"How could this have happened?" Xander heard his mother ask.

"We're not really sure at this juncture, but we suspect it was most likely a recessive genetic disorder that is just now showing up," the doctor began, only to be cut off by a nurse.

"Xander is awake now, Doctor Jones," she said.

"Thank you Nurse-" the doctor made a big show of looking for her name tag, but it seemed to Xander just an excuse for the doc to look down the busty woman's scrubs. "-Nurse Maxwell. We'll head right in." Doctor Jones was late 40s, a little overweight with a bald patch with closely cropped salt and pepper hair in a Picard-style cut. It was obvious he was going for dignified, but just barely managed pompous. "Ah, young Xander, how are you feeling this fine afternoon?"

Afternoon? The last Xander remembered it was sunrise. And how was he feeling? Frankly, he felt like crap. "My lungs ache; my throat burns like I just swallowed a gallon of lava; I can barely lift my arms up off the bed; and I'm coughing blood. How do you _think_ I'm feeling?"

His mother jumped at the harsh, sarcastic comment that rasped out of her son's throat. His voice was still recognizable, but the only time he had ever had something as bad was when he'd had strep throat back in the 6th grade. Tony Harris glared at him for causing a scene in public, but didn't say anything.

"That's not to mention that everyone looks like walking corpses," Xander continued.

"Visual hallucinations...very interesting," the Doctor muttered, noting that reaction on his clipboard. "Anything wrong with your other senses?"

"No, everything sounds fine, it still smells like a hospital, but I haven't eaten anything, so that's not different," Xander replied, this time with less venom than before, but he refused to look the man in the eyes. To see those dead, glassy orbs swiveling around in their sockets made him want to hurl. On some level he realized that nothing had truly sunk in. He was in shock. He looked up at the corpses that spoke with his parents voices. He could see the anger in their faces, the horror his appearance instilled in their minds. His father was defensive, his arms crossed over his chest and his legs farther apart than normal, trying to look more menacing than he was. His mother was standing, holding herself as if cold. Xander could tell she had no idea what to do about this strange situation. Xander couldn't blame them. He knew that as soon as he went home, everything was going back to normal. The drinking and yelling would start back up. His parents never actually hit each other or him, but they were both drunks. Tony Harris was a very nice man when he was sober, but he fell into a bottle in the 80s after having lost his job and had trouble, and little desire to, climbing back out ever since. All the anger he held inside bubbled out like foam from a shaken bottle of Schlitz. Jessica Harris went the other route into depression. She had been like many mothers when Xander was a child, loving, caring, sober, but the loss of her brother in a brutal accident had put the kibosh to that when Xander was 5. As his mother had withdrawn into herself, Xander had drifted away from the core of the Harris household, spending more and more time with Willow and Jesse.

The doctor rattled off a few more reasons why Xander would be seeing things and how this would impact his body. He rationalized away why Xander's black hair had turned a sickly silver-gray in one night. They had tested for dyes and found none. His skin was golden and dull, but there was little chance that he was going to return to the more "traditional" hues of skin tone any time soon. Even the skin under his fingernails had changed. He picked up a mirror and looked at his reflection. Golden gums, but his teeth were pure white, whiter than they were before. But his eyes...his eyes were the aureate hue of the sunrise with twin hourglass pupils edged in orange fire irises. He almost threw the mirror across the room, but paused as he realized that he could see people as they truly were in their reflection. In the mirror his parents were whole, unblemished by his accursed sight. He reached out a finger, but touched only cold glass.

* * *

><p>His cough hadn't improved by that night so he was kept overnight in the ICU for observation. The sounds of the machines and the crazy people who practically live in the ICU came alive without the sounds of cars driving down the road and all the people moving all over the place like during the day. He was unable to sleep. His IV ran out and it took the nurses nearly half an hour to replace it and Xander had to deal with the beep-beep-beep that rang out like a siren so close to his ear, yet too far to reach. Sleep was difficult to find anywhere. The man complaining about his shirts the previous afternoon had changed to calling out for his wife, or ex-wife who had died fifteen years prior, but the senile man still called out her name, hoping beyond hope that she would return to him.<p>

Xander learned that this happened every night and that "you just get used to it" as the nurses said. Xander had no desire to be there long enough "to get used to it" and hated that he was locked up, nearly shackled to the bed with the anti-clot machine strapped to his legs. A child cried out from the pediatric side of the ICU, a young girl who called out for her mother, saying something was sitting on her chest. She was sobbing, but no one went to check on her. Xander turned his head to see a creature perched upon the child like Christopher Walken in the Prophesy with the looks of Freddy Kruger. It was misshapen, twisted into a mockery of humanity as it bent closer and closer to the girl's mouth and it seemed to fade in and out of view constantly like slow pulse of vision. As its eyes extended, latching onto the poor girl, the creature...the-the _demon_ seemed savor something unseen, a scent or a taste that came from the girl. Physically bound by IV and machine as surely as shackles to a dungeon wall, Xander's options were severely limited. But words came to mind, arcane phrases few mortals of Xander's world knew and even if they did, rarely ever dared to speak. To a part of Xander, a part that he had been just a day previous, they were well remembered words of significant quality, like loving friends come to visit. His fingers moved almost unbidden into the somatic components of the spell. He whispered the words and the spell flew both from his mind and his fingers, hitting the creature perched on the bed. Xander watched, satisfied as its eyes rolled up into its head and it fell backwards unconscious, a satisfying crack as it's head hit the floor at an unnatural angle and was still.

It would be fifteen minutes before nurses went over to see what went wrong, but by that time, Xander wasn't paying attention. Xander's only concern was that which took place, prompting the girl's survival, the actions that Xander himself took. Actions that should not have been possible. The with the possible eliminated, all that remained was the impossible. This particular impossibility defied logic as Xander knew it and went straight into the arcane.

He had cast...a spell? Xander asked himself.

He had cast a spell. Xander knew it had happened, as there was clear evidence right across the ICU.

How was that even possible? How could it have happened? And was that last night more than just a dream or a hallucination? Was it something more? Something greater?

Every part of Xander's thinking being said it was true. He had been Raistlin for those hours, for that night. But was that it? Those kids, those people: had they really killed them? Were they at fault? Or was it Caramon, Tika and Raistlin's fault? Where did Xander end and Raistlin begin?

* * *

><p>Willow visited that afternoon.<p>

"I was really worried about you, but they wouldn't let me visit because you were in the ICU and I'm not family, except we're _really_ good best friends and I really wanted to come, but they were worried at first that it was an infection, and they didn't want me there to spread it or catch it, because if I was exposed earlier, I could have been spreading it since I took you to the hospital, but it's not an infection, so now I can visit," she said before taking a deep breath and blushing at her babble. She glanced nervously and held up her gift. "Fruit basket?"

"Thank you Willow," Xander said, smiling at his friend, but looking away from her.

"Are...are you okay? Do they know what happened?" she asked hesitantly.

Xander didn't answer at first. He lifted his head up and looked at the window over her shoulder. She was whole in the reflection. It wasn't like seeing her face, but she was _alive_ in the window.

"What do you remember from Tika?" Xander asked. Willow's face paled and the girl froze as sure as if she was paralyzed by a spell. She looked intently at the fruit basket on her knees.

"She thought that she was doing the right thing," Willow replied quietly. "She saw the goblins and all she could think about was how they had taken over the Inn, the tree, the whole of Solace. She had no reason to think they were children changed into monsters. But yesterday morning, I saw them, I saw them transform back. Tika didn't know, but _I_ do. I don't understand how I know her. Xander, I know her like I was her..." She looked up at him, where he appeared to still be staring out the window. "Xander," she asked quietly, "why are you still wearing your contacts?"

He turned to face her, looking over her shoulder, his eyes purposefully not looking at her, not focusing at her, refusing to see her like the walking dead. His expression wasn't stony, but serious, dark. "I'm not wearing contacts, Willow."

Looking into his eyes, she gasped as she saw the hourglass pupils dilate in the change of light from window to room. She stared in silent horror and shame, shame that he was the one to suffer and not her. She did, in a lot of ways, blame herself. She could have argued. She could have done...what else could she have done? She gulped and looked at his skin and hair once more for a closer inspection.

"You have Raistlin's curse," she said. It was a statement, not a comment and Xander took it as such, but he nodded in confirmation anyway. "What-" she paused, taking a breath. "What else did you get from him?"

"I can see like he can," he told her, clenching his fists around the sheet covering him. He stubbornly glared out the window. "I have magic, Willow."

"What?"

"I can cast spells," he explained, a bitter tinge to his voice, though it wasn't directed at her. "Granted, I've only ever tried one, but it worked."

"Spells?" she squeaked, startled.

"Yes, I seem to have some of Raistlin's magic as well," Xander admitted. "I'd have rather gone as Sturm or hell, if I'd have known I'd be getting knowledge from someone, I'd have dressed as Einstein. If I wanted magic powers, I'd have gone with Doctor Strange."

"I'm glad I didn't go as a ghost," Willow said. "I might still be one. Although then my hair might not be so curly," she commented, pulling at lock of her long red hair that jumped back like a coiled spring. It wasn't as frizzy as Xander, or rather _Raistlin,_ remembered the real Tika's being, but it gave Willow a styled look to her normally straight hair and looked...well, it looked pretty damn good on her.

"Whatever was done can be undone," Xander said, repeating something Raistlin had heard someone say at the Tower of High Sorcery before he took his test. "But there is always a cost."

"How is Jesse?" Willow asked.

"I don't know," Xander rasped. Willow thought she saw a touch of anger flash over his eyes. "He hasn't been by. From the way he ran off, he might not even know I'm here."

"He wasn't in class yesterday," Willow said. "I don't know what's up with him."

Xander was silent as he sullenly glanced away, crossing his arms.

"He's better not be running away," Willow said with a furrowed brow.

"I wouldn't be surprised _at all_," Xander rasped before falling into another coughing fit. Blood flecks were stark against the white blanket and johnny he wore. Willow panicked and called in the nurses. Daytime nurses were just so much better than the night shift. They pulled the worried redhead out of the room, and checked Xander over, finding nothing different.

"I'll just call the doctor since the medicine we've got you on doesn't seem to be doing anything for your cough, but your lungs seem okay, doesn't sound like you've got any fluid in them," she told him. She asked him to rate his pain, and he gave a modest three out of ten. With his memories of Raistlin, the racking cough and the pain it brought was practically an old friend compared to being crushed by a black dragon's claw.

Willow watched with a worried brow as doctors and nurses swarmed over her friend, no one really clear on what had happened. Willow knew better than anyone what would happen if any of them told the real story of what happened that night. Willow knew more about making and serving beer than she ever thought she'd ever know. Every time she picked up a frying pan she got an image, a half memory, of her hand, Tika's hand, swinging the pan into draconian heads. Sometimes the pan was replaced by a shield bashing an armored opponent or shielding against dragon breath. Tika didn't like Raistlin; in fact, she damn near hated him. Raistlin was sarcastic, caustic and brutal with the truth. He was also the person Caramon loved more than anyone. Tika knew Caramon felt affection for her, but anything greater was overshadowed by his need to care for his brother. Tika didn't like it, but knew that more than a little jealousy was housed in her breast. Willow worried that she and Tika were too much alike. She worried that she would start to hate Xander like Tika hated Raistlin.

She watched as the coughing fit subsided and the nurses pulled back. Xander leaned back, his chest heaving as he tried to find the breath he lost in his coughs. For the first time he looked right at her.

"Willow," he rasped. "Thank you."

The girl's worries vanished with those words. She rushed over and pulled him into a hug.

* * *

><p>Unbeknownst to Willow, Xander wasn't looking at her, but over her shoulder. Jesse stood in the doorway, looking haggard as he stared at their embrace. As Willow's arms embraced him, she never saw the scowl the hospital inmate shot at the healthy teen standing in the doorway. Jesse squirmed under his friend's gaze and that suited Xander just fine.<p>

Nervous, his confidence shattered, Jesse turned and fled the hospital.

* * *

><p>"Okay, okay, okay so you can cast spells, and that is so cool, I really wish I could cast spells, but that's your thing and I'm cool about that, but I mean I didn't even think magic was real and now Xander's a wizard or are you a sorcerer? Is there a difference, because I've never really been sure; are you like Raistlin with all the robes and stuff, or did you just get a few spells? And you don't seem to have a spellbook, oh, and don't Raistlin type-wizards lose their spells as soon as they cast them if they don't write them down? And that could be a bad thing if you lost all your spells," Willow said before taking a gigantic gasp of air to refill her lungs, suddenly looking very worried. "I need to sit down."<p>

"You are sitting down," Xander said helpfully.

"Oh," she replied. "Good for me."

Xander tossed a book into her lap. It was dark leather bound with golden trim. The pages were old, stained yellow with age, but with negative images of letters and words that once adorned the pages. Flipping to the cover she realized that whatever had once been on the spine was erased, replaced by a bit of filigree. The first few pages were filled with strange, arcane writing that had no tell as to the meaning. Willow looked up at Xander for an explanation.

"Raistlin made it," he replied to her unvoiced question. "I _think_ it's a copy of his spellbook, but I'm not sure. I can only make out a little here and there of the words. Every time I read it the pages make more sense." he began to cough, but waved off her attempts to help. "The way he worked, I get the impression that he saw everyone changing, so he broke into that new age shop-what's it called? The Magic Box, I believe-and grabbed a book. He cast a spell erasing what was there before and replaced it with copies of the books he had with him."

"But how can you use it?" Willow asked.

"I don't know if I can," he replied. "Not yet at least. I remember a few things he could do, sleight of hand and the like, but the spells, I've cast three and then they're gone. Out of my mind like I never had them in the first place."

"Is that how it's supposed to work?" Willow asked. "It's magic. Magic's really real. And you can do it. Magic's real. I sound crazy, but I'm not crazy. Is that allowed legally?"

Xander rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. "Oh, I don't know, maybe you should ask a lawyer."

Willow shot a glare at him before poking him hard in the arm.

"Not nice to make fun of me," she warned with full on resolve face.

* * *

><p>As he spent time in the hospital, Xander spent less and less time watching the television and more and more time working out the esoteric nature of the book in his hands. The book that Raistlin had preserved for his own use. It wasn't written in the spoken language of Krynn, nor any of the tongues Raistlin was familiar with spoken by other races and other planes. This was a language constructed for one reason: the expression of magic. The Language of Magic was unique, having verbal forms, but was primarily written. Each wizard had their own shorthand for spells, their own personal encryption into the Arcane Arts. Raistlin's was particularly complex and if it weren't for Xander's personal insight into his mind, the Sunnydale boy would have been helpless. Even so, it was an arduous task that Xander fought through one phrase at a time.<p>

One phrase was the command to sleep, with a series of notes on what was required for a material component and what gestures were needed for the effect. Another spell was the cantrip, a method of prestidigitation, performing many minor tricks of illusion and misdirection that worked well with other skills gained from Raistlin's experience. One by one the spells revealed themselves to Xander like putting together a puzzle one piece at a time. Eventually he had deciphered the spells of Sleep, Magic Missile and others, expanding this to include the powers to throw fire from his hands in bolts and even throw an arrow of acid created by some guy named Melf. There were spells to charm opponents and innocents and several to induce sleep. But eventually, Xander got to what appeared to be the end of Raistlin's rather limited spellbook. He tried flipping to the next page, but realized that several of pages were stuck together in one clump that seemed to change in size depending on how you looked at it. Sometimes it looked about five pages thick, other times thirty. After fiddling with it for days, Xander got the bright idea that there might have been an arcane lock on the book. After much practice and failed attempts, Xander cast the counterspell, Knock, unlocking the books hidden contents. Xander opened to that first page of the locked section and started to read.

"Fiz-fist-fizban? Fizban's Fantastic and Fabulous Fireball?" Xander asked, holding the book at arm's length. He turned the book sideways and back trying to see if there was something more to it. "Well, okay that's page one. Wait, wasn't Fizban really...?" Xander shook his head and turned to the next page. "The Spellbook of Fis-fist-Fistandantilus?" Xander set the book down on his lap, hyperventilated for a moment, "Oh my."

The Cypher was different from Raistlin's, but oddly similar enough so that Xander had a place to start.

* * *

><p>It was three weeks before Xander was allowed out of the hospital and back into school. He'd completed his work on time since there was little else to do in the hospital save for watching reruns of Law &amp; Order and its various spin offs. A little known fact, it's possible to watch Law &amp; Order nearly 24 hours a day on hospital television.<p>

Before his stay, Xander had a healthy, if not chiseled, musculature, but now after three weeks of low calories and no exercise, Xander was weak and it showed. Clothing that had fit before his stay now hung off his body, only serving to emphasize his weakened state. Normally someone in such a situation would have had at least a week of recovery and physical therapy, but Tony Harris was convinced that was for liberal sissies and shipped Xander off to school the very next day.

He looked at himself in the mirror; nothing but golden skin and bones. His hair had grown out and he hadn't had time to get it trimmed, but it was growing out a dirty mix of gray, white and black, no stripes, but with no uniform discoloration, making it appear dirty, matching his sickly appearance. Xander looked at his closet. There were Haiwaiian shirts now several sizes too large for him, and pants that would only work if he tightened them close with a belt. Even his socks were too big, slipping down his ankles to get caught under his heel as he walked. Xander rifled through his "present clothes" the section of his closet where gifts from family members resided and were rarely if ever worn in public. A part of the problem was that a number of them were purchased while drunk, and so the choices were less than desirable, even for a fashion blind individual like Xander. Goodness knows he loved Willow like a sister, but he had no desire to dress like her.

Deep at the bottom of the pile (which had been up to that point layered chronologically like an archaeological dig site) was a purchase from back in the days his uncle Rory actually still had a license. Bright crimson Red Sox hoodie, years old so it actually fit his new frame, while still disguising his fragile state; Xander pulled it on over a simple white shirt and an old pair of black jeans that were just baggy enough to prevent him from looking like an anorexic Goldfinger reject.

Laboriously, he hefted his school books one by one and stuffed his backpack with only the bare essentials. He had his notes for the last few classes he had missed, two pens, two notebooks and the seven books he needed for classes that day. In times past he would have simply jumped on his skateboard and ridden it to school and stopped quickly when he ran into someone. Now he wasn't sure he even had the strength and dexterity to keep himself going at a regular pace on the contraption. Instead he chose the long way: walking to school.

By all rights, he shouldn't have even been out of bed, but he doggedly put one foot in front of the other, pushing himself until he could see Principal Flutie at the gates. The very friendly but strict administrator was not a bad person, but he had this way of looking at you that made you feel like a little kid. A side effect of that was that not too many of the "bad kids" took him seriously. They always seemed to forget that there is a difference between a kind man and a weak man. Someday they were going to push Bob Flutie too far and that was a day Xander always wanted to see.

"Come along son," Flutie said, motioning for him to hurry. "Don't want to be late."

Xander tried to run, he really did, but the crisp November air was sharp going into his lungs and by the time he made it to the gate he was practically falling over.

"Are you okay son?" Flutie asked, "I would help you to your feet, but regulations state that faculty are not allowed to touch students in any way that can be misinterpreted."

"You-" Xander knelt on the ground, his arms straight, holding him up, as he coughed blood on the sidewalk. "You have permission to help me up."

The older man grabbed Xander's arm and helped him to his feet, only then noticing the stain of red on the concrete.

"Are you okay? Should we take you to the hospital?" Flutie asked, hovering about him.

"I just got out and they said they couldn't do anything," Xander said, with a shake of his head. "I need to be somewhere other than a hospital bed."

"I'll give you a note for your first class," he said. Xander looked up in surprise and regretted it as it was the first time the Principal was able to look into his hood. The man flinched as if slapped and immediately looked away to prevent eye contact. "You, uh, just make sure you have something to cough into. For health reasons, you know. The school board is very serious about blood born pathogens; it seems to be something they pride themselves on."

"You don't have to worry- _hack!-cough!-rasp!_ -about me, Principal Flutie," Xander said, still finding it a little hard to breathe, but he was back on his feet again. Bob scribbled something on a blue pad, ripped off the first one and handed it to Xander.

"Welcome back to Sunnydale High, Mr. Harris," he said.


	3. Chapter 3

Xander slipped into his first class, his hood up and his bag over both shoulders, fastened tight to help him keep his balance. The luxury of just tossing a bookbag over one shoulder was gone with his new physique. From the back of the chem lab, Willow waved with the excitement of a hyperactive puppy on speed at the prospect of getting fed. Handing the note to the teacher, Xander made his way to the back of the room. He could feel the eyes of the other students on him, staring, glaring, judging. Xander, normally a man who held his head high, looked at the ground and kept walking, but that didn't keep him from being tripped by some guy who normally orbited around Cordelia Chase. His books flew from his grasp, his bag flew forward, hitting him in the back of the head as he fell to the floor. The class laughed.

"Welcome back, Harris!" the offending jock taunted.

"The more things change, the more they stay the same," Xander growled under his breath. He looked up at the jock, his hood haven fallen back revealing the gray hair, golden skin and bright yellow eyes, and smirked. "Still a simian, I see."

The jock, stupid as usual, knew it was an insult, but wasn't sure what it meant. So he moved to kick the fallen figure. Unfortunately for him, he was stupid enough to have done all this in front of the teacher.

"That is detention, Mr. Jonston, Thursday I think, right after school ends," the science professor said as he carefully measured a pipette of some clear liquid.

"What? I've got a game that night!" the jock protested.

"Oh, what a shame," the science teacher said in a very sarcastic tone. He carefully set the experiment down on the desk. "Allow me to make myself perfectly clear: I do not care about what team you are on. I do not care about what position you play. I do not care who your parents are. I do not care if you have a Maserati or a broken down Ford. I come here to do my job which is to teach chemistry, biology and earth science. This might have been different with your previous instructor who seemed to have left in abrupt circumstances, however, I am not that person. This is chemistry class. We deal with some rather volatile chemicals. If used improperly, some will kill you. There will be no roughhousing in this classroom. There will be no picking on other students. Doing so will only ruin your grade point average and harm you in the long run. Remember, if you flunk my class, you won't qualify for sports teams. I do not bow sycophantically down to those who think their high point in life is throwing a ball."

"But what about sports scholarships?" one jock protested. "We can't get one if you flunk us!"

The chemist gave him a flat look.

"Do your work, study hard and don't cause trouble and I won't have an issue with you," he said.

By this time, Xander had climbed back to his feet and made his way to the back of the room. People stared at his new appearance, but he pretended not to notice. Willow had saved a seat for him, so he slid in beside her.

"Don't worry about him, Harry Jonston's a real jerky-jerk," Willow told him in a comforting tone.

"Thanks Wills," he replied quickly, biting back on the sarcastic response he almost let fly passed his lips. "What did I miss?"

They started talking about class and both forgot all about the jocks and the angry looks flying their way.

* * *

><p>They only had two classes with Jesse: English and Gym. Jesse had been avoiding Xander since the hospital and so Willow and Xander had only seen him a couple of times. Xander slipped into the classroom, taking his usual seat next to Willow, who was willing to act as a shield against Jesse's attempts at conversation. In English, the students sat down, opened their books and listened to each other read, or at least pretended to. Today, however, they were in for a treat.<p>

"Today class we will begin our section on poetry," Mr. Edwards announced, prompting a number of groans from about the classroom. "Yeah, yeah, I've heard just about every excuse there is about poetry, so give it a rest. Poetry can be fun; poetry can be political; poetry can evoke any number of emotions in the reader and listener. So I'll be spending the next two months introducing you some of the best and worst out there. We'll start with some of the best, you'll write your own, and then we'll go back to reading the best at the end of the two months. So open your books to page 34 and..." he waved his finger about the classroom before spotting a hooded student in the back of the room who seemed to be hiding out. "You, Harris, start us off, I'll tell you when to stop."

Xander opened to the appropriate page and paused, reading the title.

"_Once_," he said, his voice dark and rasping. Students jumped upright at the harsh sound and spun around to look at him. "_Upon a midnight dreary_," students squirmed as the words of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven flew from Xander's lips. His voice was perfect for Poe. While he spoke the words, seemingly in a whisper that everyone miraculously leaned in, as if to huddle around him. "_There I pondered, weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore._"

Xander's lips quirked up into a sardonic smile as he saw the person in front of him shiver. Heads turned and they watched as Xander spoke softly, yet clearly so that all could hear his every word. He ran through the verses perfectly with the meter, pronunciation and canter all precise. Mr. Edwards completely forgot to tell him to stop reading until the end of the poem. As he reached the end, Xander paused, looked up, and then slammed the book shut, causing the others in the class to jump in surprise. His classmates caught his eyes as he glanced over them, entranced by his hourglass eyes. Xander smiled a not-so-nice smile. He flicked his eyes over his nervous audience and caught Jesse's gaze, locking it in place.

"_Nevermore_."

* * *

><p>Gym class was the final one of the day. It was also traditionally Xander's least favorite class and that tradition seemed to be continuing. It was an excuse for the muscle bound morons that populated Sunnydale's sports teams to pick on those unfortunate enough to be born with IQs greater than their shoe size or who just didn't quite fit in, or those who didn't yell out letters and toss fluffy balls in the air. Jonathan, Willow, Xander and Jesse were always the last to be picked and the first to be picked on. Xander, now a much greater target since he had been held responsible for Harry Jonston's detention and subsequent suspension from the Basketball team, was certainly going to be the target of ridicule and whatever projectile was being thrown that day. This was, of course, ignoring the fact that he should not have even been taking part. In fact it was something of a miracle that he was even still on his feet after such a long day. Even his request to avoid the class for health reasons was denied due to the actions of a certain Vice-principalcommandant Snyder.

"You're gonna get it Harris!" Jonston's teammate promised as he shoved the boy with his shoulder, sending Xander sprawling on the floor. Xander's eyes flashed with anger and he waved his hands, muttering under his breath. The floor beneath the jocks became slick with Xander's angry spell and as they started to run, they fell as one, hitting chins to the hard wooden floor.

"Xander!" Willow hissed. Xander just shrugged and waved his hand, ending the spell. "You can't be using ma-"

"Illow-way, ixnay on the agic-may," Xander muttered lowly so only she could hear. He sat down on the bleachers to enjoy watching the jocks get reamed out by Coach Marin for making fools of themselves. Jesse sat down beside his friend, but stayed silent. He glanced at Xander from the corner of his eye every so often, but didn't look on him fully, choosing his own feet as a more interesting subject.

"You've been getting stronger," Xander said, not looking at his friend.

"Uh, yeah," Jesse said quietly, not quite sure what else to say.

"I'm going to forgive you," Xander said, watching the jock drama as the jocks tried to explain why they tripped. "Don't get me wrong, I'm furious at you right now." Jesse flinched. "If I had the strength, I'd punch you right now, but I don't. But someday I'll forgive you, but right now there is something I want you to always remember."

"What's that?" Jesse asked.

"This is your fault," Xander replied bluntly as he turned his hand around to watch the afternoon sun play on his skin. "No matter what anyone tells you, I didn't have a reaction to the facepaint. Allergic reactions don't give you the eyes that look exactly like your contacts; they don't give you skin like your makeup; something else happened, you know it, Willow knows it, and I know it. But _you_ bought the costumes; _you_ picked them out; _you_ decided I would dress as _your_ favorite character; and _you_ did it all for your own lust of Cordelia Chase, a girl who has made my school life hell for years. I don't think you _intended_ for this to happen, but it _did_. You can never forget that. _Never._"

"I won't," Jesse said.

Xander nodded. "Good." He glanced down at where the jock mess was sorted out. "Now go down there and make the jocks look like idiots in the common adolescent torture known as dodge ball."

"In some societies mock battle is a ritual into adulthood," Willow put in helpfully.

"And judging by how often we play dodge ball, this is one of them," Xander replied.

"Aren't you going to play?" Jesse asked.

"With my new constitution? Not just no, hell no," Xander replied. "I see enough of my own blood when I cough. Besides," he held up a familiar leather tome, "I have a book to read."

Jesse gave his friend a worried look. "You reading books with real words and no pictures. I think that's the scariest thing that's happened thus far."

Xander smiled evilly. "Oh, it's far beyond scary."

"Harris, why aren't you playing?" the coach demanded.

"Because I just got out of the hospital," he replied.

"Do you have a pass?" the coach asked, fully aware that Vice Principal Snyder would never give out such a thing.

"No," Xander replied.

"They get out there!"

"No," Xander replied. "_Ehraize_!"

"What?" the coach demanded as Xander finished another spell. A moment later, the coach realized with a sharp abruptness that Xander was his best friend. He would do almost anything for Xander if it was in his power.

"I think it would be best for me to skip gym, but you can feel free to give me full marks," Xander replied. Willow's eyes looked like they were about to bug out of her head.

"Xander!" she hissed in horror, grabbing his arm.

"Coach here doesn't mind if I magic him, do you Coach?" Xander asked the man. The golden lips curved into a smirk.

"No way, it's all cool," the phys-ed instructor said with a wide, friendly smile.

"Just a suggestion, you might want to forget all about me casting spells on you in just a bit," Xander said.

"Consider it forgotten!"

He walked off a little ways, turned and waved at Xander who gave a sardonic little smile and wave in return. The coach walked a little closer to his office and turned to smile and wave at Xander again. Xander waved back but muttered so only Willow could hear.

"You know," he said, nodding to the waving coach. "I think this is the creepiest thing that's happened yet."

"You really shouldn't magic people, it's just not right," she said with a disapproving look a moment before her mental train jumped tracks. "Oh, have you met the new librarian?"

"Librarian?" Xander asked numbly.

"Yeah, Mr. Giles," Willow said, ignoring his quick reversal to the old Xander. "He's got lots of cool stuff in the library."

"Library?" Xander asked numbly. Even with all the changes that have taken place, Xander was still Xander.

"Yes, Xander, where the books live," she told him with a little smile.

"_I know that!_" Xander snapped lightly.

"He's got a huge occult section," she continued, giving him a little scowl for being so abrupt.

"Hmm..." he pondered. "Perhaps I will check it out."

They sat quietly for a while and they watched Jesse thoroughly trample over his competition. The muscle he put on in three weeks was impressive, especially because Jesse was not especially active before Halloween. His build was more and more like Caramon's and Xander was growing weaker. If he had been a more jealous man, Xander might have seen Jesse as having stolen his strength and sturdy constitution.

Willow seemed to be nervous in the silence between them and twitched every time Coach waved to them. "Xander?"

"Yeah Willow?"

"Please don't ever magic me."

He turned towards her, but with his eyes closed. "Willow," he said slowly. "You know I would never do that to you."

"They why did you cast the spell on the coach?"she asked.

"I have no desire to suffer a concussion any time soon," Xander admitted. "But really," he said as he halfheartedly returned another wave to the faculty member in question, "there's got to be a better way to get out of gym."

* * *

><p>The library after school was only slightly more empty than it was during school. Though it was quiet, had a nice wide skylight and plenty of windows, students and staff tended to shy away from the room. Unlike most of Sunnydale High's architecture, the library had a distinctive faux-Victorian feel that smelled of old books and the Old World. Dark carved wood that predated the school itself curved up along the steps as the railing. The bookcases were old and worn, strong and sturdy, darkly stained and comforting. The floors (made of wood, not concrete) were covered not with carpet, but with rugs woven in some far off place and brought thousands of miles for the specific purpose of being walked on. The scent of expensive imported tea wafted in from the librarian's office. Large tomes were often left open as if someone had just finished pondering over some quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore.<p>

Then the doors opened and an American walked in, ruining the entire image.

"Hey Mr. Giles!" Willow said.

Stepping out of his office, Librarian Rupert Giles straightened his glasses and nodded to her.

"Oh, yes," he said in a formal British accent. "Hello, Willow."

"I brought my friend Xander," she announced, waving to the red hooded figure that walked in slowly behind her. The individual known as Xander looked up and Giles tensed, but didn't jump. Golden skin and yellow eyes are not something someone sees on a human very often, but can be more frequently viewed on those of more extraplanar ancestry.

"Ah yes, Xander was it," he said, clutching a book with both hands. "I am Mr. Giles."

"He's _really_ cool," Willow said, nodding to the British man.

"Yes, well, thank you Willow," Giles said nervously, more than a little uncomfortable at the praise.

"I'm going to show Xander the new books you brought," Willow said.

"New books?" Giles' mind raced. What were the new books that he brought? The only books he'd introduced into the library were the occult... Giles cut off that line of thought as he realized that the person in front of him, who could very well be a demon, was interested in the books in a Watcher's occult section. That was a little disturbing to say the least.

"Yeah, you've got a whole bunch of cool stuff," Willow said helpfully.

"Yes, well, thank you, I shall be in my office doing a bit of research should you require my assistance," the librarian announced before vanishing into his inner sanctum. He shut the door behind him and pulled several books on magical and demonic creatures from the shelves. Spreading them across his desk, the Watcher started researching on what creatures have golden skin and hourglass shaped eyes. Ironic how if he'd just used the infernal machine, the solution would have been quick.


	4. Chapter 4

An Invite Sent

* * *

><p><em>Hi folks, this chapter's a little different, but isn't filler. It's pretty important and at the same time, something of an experiment. Tell me what you think, please.<em>

_Thanks again to GreyWizard for all the help._

* * *

><p>"Ah, Darla." The voice was lisping, and oh so familiar. "Darla, Dear One, attend to me."<p>

The blonde vampire swiftly, with supernatural grace, stepped to her sire's side.

"Master," she said, her voice full of reverence of an almost religious nature.

"How goes your task?" the Master said, caressing his childe's cheek with one ancient misshapen hand.

Darla's eyes flittered down, glancing at the dust, water and candle wax that had been littered across the floor. "Not well, Master," she admitted, shame apparent in her voice. "The demoness is reluctant to join your cause, but she is arrogant. I'm having the newly turned focus on her thralls, Master. She will know her place is at your side soon enough."

"Be careful to not call too much attention to yourself," The Master said, holding her head in his hands, "for you are Dear to me, my greatest childe." His hands fell down to his side and he walked back to his throne-like chair at the back of the cave. "So, tell me, why is there a true demon attending mortal school?"

"She is able to feed with impunity, Master," Darla said. "Teenagers are guided by their hormones, much more so than any other age."

"Yes, yes," the Master said, "but there are plenty of other places she could hunt for her sustenance. I am asking why she is attending school? Why does she hide who she truly is? What she truly is? Something tells me she is not truly as demonic as many have said. Find her weaknesses. Pressure on her herd is good, but there must be more to truly bind her to my service. All things have flaws, Darla, and the greatest of us try to over come them," he said as he held a cross in his bare hand, ignoring the sizzling of his flesh and the smoke rising from the wound. "Something tells me she is young, another weakness."

"I will find them, Master," Darla said, giving the elder vampire a curtsey. She turned to leave and was almost out the door before he called out to her.

"Oh, and Darla?"

"Yes, my Master?"

"If she doesn't come around, kill her," the Master said.

"Your will be done," the blonde vampire said before skipping out the door. The Master watched her go, still enthroned on his chair as he leaned over to rest his cheek on one clawed hand.

"Yes, Luke?"

"Master," Luke said, stepping from the shadows. "There is another problem."

* * *

><p>On the other side of Sunnydale High, cheerleaders called out their cheers, jocks practiced their passes and a female walked into the boy's locker room. Or perhaps "stalked" would have been a better verb for what she did, for this particular female was a predator looking for prey. Now unlike the normal predators of Sunnydale, she was not a vampire. She was still human...as far as she knew.<p>

You see, Xander, Willow and Jesse weren't the only people to shop at Ethan's. Before Halloween, seeing the better quality of Ethan's shop over those of Partytown, she decided that her costume would be better off if purchased from him. And it was magnificent. Her choice of costume was a sexy devil, and sexy, it most definitely was. Wings made of thin, supple leather were supported by a framework built into a costume that most dominatrices would be hesitant to wear in public. The leather was dull, the pattern of the skin very apparent, but it was fitted perfectly to her. It was like the costume was made especially for her. It emphasized her bust and had the cutest little tale that was designed to wag back and forth as she moved like one of those toy snakes made up of sections. If she had looked closely, she would have realized that it was made of bones covered in leather that didn't come from a normal animal. 

* * *

><p>Harmony Kendall was sure to be the center of attention. At least that's what Cordy said. Of course, Cordy wasn't very nice when Harmony showed her the Harmony-the-Sexy-Demon costume. It was not much, a red bodysuit, a bit of red cloth and wire wings and a set of horns. She'd bought it all at Ethan's Costume Shop and even Daddy liked it. Daddy always knew what Harmony liked.<p>

Cordy, on the other hand, hadn't liked it that much, and called her a Slut-o-matic, whatever that was. But Harmony was undeterred by the statements and wore it to the party where anybody who was anybody attended. This apparently meant the rich kids, the jocks and the wannabees, according to what Harm saw at the party. There were a lot of teenage drunks, too, and they brought a lot of booze. After a little while, people were drinking a lot and they got lots worse at dancing. Cordy wouldn't have been impressed, but she was paying attention to the captain of the football team and didn't seem to notice.

Harmony, as predicted, was the center of attention. Judging from some of the comments the basketball players said, it was because she had chosen not to wear a bra under her costume. That was strange, because she was wearing a bra, but they were pretty drunk, so it was an understandable mistake on their part. Or maybe they were telling her to take it off. But she wouldn't do that because good girls don't take off their clothes at parties. Her parents said so, and made her promise, so Harmony kept her costume on.

* * *

><p>A little after six, about fifteen minutes after dark (Harmony's parents had always told her to be careful after dark, so she kept an eye on the sky), Harmony noticed that some people were acting stranger than normal. Cameron, the guy from the swim team who had dressed up like a pirate, was holding Aura by the neck. Harmony marched right over and gave him what-for, a nice slap on the cheek, because that wasn't how you treated a lady - everyone knew that. That's when Harmony realized her hand had grown claws. Four bright red marks streaked across his face, eliciting a gasp of pain from the teen. He turned to her, his face full of anger and was entranced, almost drooling at the sight of her, all reaction from before was gone. She smiled again, realizing she had a pretty good costume.<p>

That was when Harmony realized she was no longer wearing a costume.

Her skin was the same tone as her costume, but the cloth was gone. Her arms and hands were covered in tiny little scales that ended with short, sharp claws at the ends of her fingertips. Holding her hand up to the light, she turned her wrist and arm, revealing that they continued until her elbow and normal feeling skin continued. She shook her head in confusion and bright red hair shook down in her face. It wasn't red hair like Rosenberg's hair, but bright and vibrant, the color of blood. That didn't seem right to Harmony, so she changed back, her skin turned to her normal tone, her claws vanished, her hair went blonde and her wings sank down into her back.

Wait, wings?

And then Harmony realized she was naked. Again.

She let out a sound in surprise and every head in the place turned to her. She noticed that Cordy wasn't there anymore, which was good, because Harmony didn't want Cordy to see her naked in a room full of people. Cordy would have a few things to say about that, and Harmony had never liked getting yelled at by Cordy or her parents, and you could be sure that Cordelia Chase would tell the Kendalls everything that Harmony did.

"Stop looking at me!" she commanded, embarrassed, and every face that had been staring at her turned away, distinctly _not_ looking at her, but they seemed to really want to. Harmony didn't want to be naked any more. She wanted to be wearing clothes that covered everything.

And then she was.

Harmony started to hyperventilate. This wasn't supposed to happen. You don't just go from wearing a costume to wearing nothing to wearing jeans and a long sleeve shirt. You don't just simply grow claws out of nowhere.

Harmony sat down in a chair next to Aura who was also distinctly _not_ looking at her.

"Aura, why aren't you looking at me?" she asked.

"Because you told me not to," Aura said, sounding a little upset.

"You can look at me, Aura," Harmony said, and the black girl's eyes were on her almost instantly. They were full of longing, of wants and lusts. Something in Harmony drew her to the girl's lips that seemed to stand out, the girl's silver lipstick gleaming in the party's candlelight. They moved together closer and closer until Harmony realized she was going to kiss one of her best friends. She pulled back, but the need was still there. It was like being thirsty, dehydrated and being stuck on dingy in the middle of the ocean. "Get away from me, Aura."

The girl skidded away backwards, eager to please.

Harmony dropped her disguise and grabbed a boy close by, her lips falling on his as she stood over him. The jock pushed against her, his lips mashing hers as she felt the power seep into her like she was drinking wine from a glass. She broke the Kiss, tossing him backwards. His body wheezed, as if he was suddenly an asthmatic and his hair turned gray, his skin wrinkling as if forced into sudden aging. The jock went from a healthy 18 to looking more like 81. Then he went still.

By then, the flood gates were open. Harmony needed more of that power, that primal rush. Lust filled her vision as she grabbed another person and kissed them, not caring about gender, social status or who they were in relation to her. She could feel the alcohol on her prey's breath, but she didn't care because no amount of booze could undermine the rush she felt from the feeding. The Kiss was everything, it was more important than the past and the future didn't matter. _Her_ needs came first. She drained another, then another and another, tossing them aside like a litterer tossing aside the wrapping of a burger. The husks meant nothing to her, it was what was inside them what mattered. A short kiss gave a little, but a long kiss gave all.

Time passed without her knowing. Her chest heaved and her pupils dilated as the rush settled down. Looking around her were a whole bunch of people lying around doing nothing. Aura was still sitting dutifully in the corner.

"Aura," Harmony commanded, wiping her mouth on the back of her wrist. The girl in question perked up instantly, eager to please. "Let's go find another party. This one's a bit dull."

The next party went the same way. Then they went to the frat house parties and took care of them. By the time she was done, five parties went the same way. She realized that should could listen to thoughts, glean something of their mental state and needs from the surface of their minds. She learned that she could be anyone's fantasy, male/female, old/young, nothing was barred from her. Everything about her body shifted at her very command. 

* * *

><p>That night, Harmony Kendall became a demon.<p>

Specifically, a demon that charmed her victims through guile and deceit, preying on their inner lust and ultimately turning it against them. She was a succubus, a creature of lusts greater than mortals, though not always sexual in nature, and she needed to fulfill them. Her new powers were instinctual, and she used them as if they had been hers for her entire life. She was a predator a step above the lowly vampires that lurked in the sewers and electrical pipes because she could take any form, enthrall any human, and feed. Better than that, she didn't even leave a mark.

That night Harmony _fed_ as the succubus. She transformed, she changed, but unlike most others, she kept her mind, but surrendered to the needs and urges of her new body. Sometimes she would drain one person at a party, drop them in some bushes somewhere, take that victim's shape and go after another. Repeat as necessary. She sated her both her physical and spiritual lusts as often as possible that night. Each time she fed, there was a feeling of relief and release that made her new body shiver with pleasure. By the time the parties were breaking up that Halloween, Harmony was an addict. And because of her feeding, devouring the very life force of hundreds of victims, she _Ascended_. 

* * *

><p>It wasn't long after this that she had her ill fated encounter with the idiot trio: Willow, Cordy's stalker and Xander. She had nearly died and only her instinctive use of her inborn magical abilities allowed her to escape. But it was Xander that recognized her, Harmony realized later, not the others. Jesse was hers until Xander realized what was happening. Those eyes of his seemed to burn right into her soul. Who did they think they were? Harmony still grumbled about that night. Of all the people, all of whom were willing to do whatever she wanted, why was that Goldfinger reject able to resist?<p>

She escaped, though, escaped to live and to feed another day. She'd thought it was over - until he came back to school.

She, too, had witnessed the sunrise and how so many around her changed.

The difference between her and _them_, though, was that Harmony had fed.

She had given into her demonic form and it had been giving her power all night, so when the sunrise came, Harmony didn't change back to the stupid little girl she was before. She remained Harmony, Queen of the Night. Well, no one could have ever accused Harmony of being humble before _or_ after that night. She kept her wings; strong leathery wings that easily allowed her to fly. The magical abilities were hers to command as they were the night before, but it was her mind that was most greatly changed. The day before Harmony had been a vapid, willfully ignorant girl. Now, only a day later, Harmony's mind was sharper, she had a greater portion of common sense and wisdom and she could charm the last coin off Scrooge McDuck with just the use of her tongue. And that was before putting her mind in the gutter. At the same time, she existed as the supreme irony of being a virgin, _celibate_ succubus. 

* * *

><p>She returned to school feeling refreshed and with a bounce to her step that drew eyes towards her chest. This was little different from before, but this time Harmony <em>noticed<em> the stares, the thoughts and feelings of lust centered on her. While her wings were retracted and hidden in her current form, her tail twitched back and forth in lustful anticipation. She could actually read minds, catch the thoughts her appearance provoked. She changed slightly in response. Her hair, normally blonde of the bottle variety, became true blonde with no unsightly roots, even her eyebrows changing. Her eyes became blue or green or brown depending on who was looking at her. Her bust grew or shrunk slightly to draw more eyes, depending on preference of viewer. Her legs grew just a little bit longer while still keeping her original height. Her hair became just the slightest bit wavy. Her body shifted slowly into the perfect hourglass figure. She reveled in the attention she was getting.

As the weeks passed, her needs plateaued and she found herself able to last longer and longer between feedings, or able to take less from each victim, keeping them alive to grow healthy again for another course. The more she fed, the more her control over both herself and her victims grew. She only caused fatal feedings in the hotel or near the university campus, never around Sunnydale High, and those fatalities were growing less and less as she discovered that if allowed to live, they only desired her more. She couldn't call them lovers, because that implied that they were on equal level with her. They were like...fruit trees or berry bushes that kept on producing the succulent fruit that kept her alive. She desired them, she was enticed by them, but she could never _love_ them.

As she traveled the night and fed and slept with who she wished, Harmony inevitably came into contact with the other apex predator of Sunnydale: the vampire. She could smell them and their minds were dead, a hollow space where a mind should have been. It was discomforting to say the least. She had attempted to cajole one into a dalliance and the subsequent attempt at feeding was less than pleasant. They tasted of ash and grave dirt. Just the very thought of them made her want to clean her mouth out with something quite astringent.

Stepping into the boy's locker room for a pick-me-up, she ran into one who had become something of a nemesis to her.

"_You_," Harmony snarled. The blonde vampire smirked back as she wiped the blood off her fangs.

"Just stopped by for an afternoon snack," she replied, dropping the body of Harmony's intended prey to the ground in a heap, blood dribbling from the wounds shredding his neck. "I like them young and strong. They're so stupid at that age, yet so malleable."

"That was mine," Harmony snarled. She flexed her hands, clenching and releasing her fists as she stood in impotent rage. Only the knowledge that all vampires were her physical superior in combat kept her from trying to strangle the fangy bitch. "You shouldn't be here, Darla."

"The Master is growing impatient, he wants you to join him," Darla replied. "Consider this thinning of your herd to be something of a...warning. He wants your power. You can do so much for him, young succubus. As a True Demon, your destiny is far beyond this little hovel of a school."

Harmony threw off her disguise. Her hair turned a dark, radiant red, her clothes, (nothing more than a part of her transformed body,) vanished as her wings shot out of her back and her feet and hands grew claws and scales. Her tailbone grew long, extending into a thin, boney tail, snapping from side to side showing off her displeasure.

"You want a discussion, why don't I open the skylight to let in the sun?" she taunted, nodding towards the ceiling. Harmony loved being smart even if she did still play the fool for the benefit and expectations of the masses. Her wit and charisma was unparalleled and even the snarky comments of the King of Cretins was no match for her now. Yeah, Harmony was not a modest succubus. She chuckled lowly as Darla glanced nervously at the ceiling before relaxing in the knowledge that it was tightly shut. "I'm not going to live in a hole, hiding from the world like you vampires."

"If you shrug off his offer, there will be nowhere you can run," Darla said as she stepped sideways around the dead body. Harmony moved in the opposite direction so soon they were slowly circling the body of one of Sunnydale's prize jocks.

"You told me yourself that he's stuck in a hole," Harmony smirked, shaking her head with amusement. "He can't do anything to me."

"But we can," Darla said as fifteen other vampires stepped out of the shadows.

"Gawd, Darla, you're as stupid as I used to be," Harmony said as she fell into a facepalm. "Later, Darla."

And with that, the succubus vanished with just the slightest of pops. The vampires glanced around, sniffing to see if she had just gone invisible.

"She's not here," one of the newer minions stated. In a fit of anger, Darla ripped his head off.

"_I know that_," she snarled as he turned to dust before turning on her other minions. "Now go find her!"

* * *

><p>Harmony shook her head as she shrank down into a human form. She knew that they would be looking for someone blonde, busty and tall, so she went with short, dark-haired and male. No one even looked at her twice as she wore the body of Jonathan Levinson. She walked out of the school and down the street until she neared her street, at which point she took her usual form. Tossing her hair over her shoulder she continued onto her house, not giving the vampires a second thought.<p>

* * *

><p>Back in Sunnydale High, Xander heard a commotion as people ran through the halls, even when most students had long since left. Glancing out the windows, he raised an eyebrow.<p>

"Hey, Willow," he said.

"Yeah?"

"What are vampires doing running around in school?" he asked in a nonchalant tone.

Willow didn't respond and began to hyperventilate. Giles, however, came falling out the doorway of his office.

"Did you say vampires?" the librarian asked in a more than worried tone. It was a tone that said both "I believe in vampires" and "Oh hell, there are vampires in the school." Xander raised his eyebrows in surprise. He pointed over his shoulder towards the doors.

"In the hallway, running all over the place."

"Oh, dear lord," Giles said, pulling off his glasses and nervously cleaning them.

"So I'm guessing vampires aren't something only seen on Halloween?" Xander asked, listening in Willow's general direction to make sure she was okay. She didn't seem okay; she seemed like she was going to pass out.

Just then, Jesse burst into the library.

"Xander, Willow! There are vampires all over the school!" he shouted as the doors swung shut behind him. Xander fell into a facepalm as he noted the comment drew the attention of the various undead bloodsuckers that were, indeed, running all over the school.

"Quickly, move towards the windows," Giles said as he pulled out a cross. "The sunlight will harm them."

"I really wish I still had a sword," Jesse commented as he made sure to be standing in bright sunlight.

"I really wish I still had a shield," Willow commented as she watched five vampires walk into the library.

"There's a few of each in my office," Giles replied helpfully.

"Which is conveniently on the other side of the vampires," Xander remarked.

"Yes, indeed," Giles replied, a little embarrassed as he held his cross out in front of him.

"Well," said one of the vampires, who, judging by the clothes, was still stuck in the days when Miami Vice was still the hottest show on television, "the target might have gotten away, but I think we've got an early dinner." He made a big show of glancing at his watch. "Well, looky there, only a half hour 'til sundown." He turned to his four fellows and shrugged. "I figure I can wait, how about you guys?"

"Half hour? Yeah," said another, "I can wait."

Xander looked at his companions with a rather displeased look. "Mr. Giles," he rasped, "there seems to be a slight flaw in your plan."

"Well, I didn't exactly expect them to think things through," Giles replied. "Young vampires, as a general rule, don't do long term planning."

"Half hour is still kinda short term," Willow commented. She turned to Xander. "Can't you..." she wiggled her fingers in the general direction of the waiting vampires. Xander huffed, rolled up his sleeves and pulled out a small pouch. Inside the pouch was a small jar of a whitish substance.

"What is that?" Jesse asked as he pulled his foot away from a grabby vamp.

"Pig fat," Xander replied simply as he covered his fingertips with the substance. There was a glow as Xander spoke the name of "Burning Hands" in the Language of Magic. Flames the color of blood, gold and glacial ice shot forward in a semicircle, catching first one, then another of the vampires until all five were rolling around like human torches, er, undead torches. The flames miraculously didn't harm anything else in the room.

"Funny," Xander pondered as he watched the vampires scream. "You'd think creatures so vulnerable to fire would know to stop, drop and roll."

After a self-satisfied moment, Xander noticed other eyes staring at him. Jesse and Giles gawked at him with open mouths.

"Oh, right," Xander said, pointing to his own head. "I'm a wizard."

* * *

><p>"So allow me to attempt to understand your situation," Rupert Giles said. He turned to give Xander a closer look. "You are not, in fact, a demon as I suspected, but a human who gained the curse of the character you dressed up as for Halloween and now are capable of feats of magic." He turned to Willow. "You are now growing at a faster rate and have a few curls in your normally straight hair. If that were not enough, you also know how to serve and produce ale, mead and other beers as well as frying pan based combat." Turning to Jesse, he looked up at the taller young man. "You have been putting on a considerable amount of muscle, quite in excess of your exercise regime, and are rather knowledgeable with sword and shield."<p>

"That pretty much covers it," Willow said with a nod of confirmation. Giles pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"And it was your costumes that did this?" he asked.

"As far as I know," Xander said. "I lost the costume in the hospital so I didn't have a chance to look into it."

"We've had some other changes," Jesse said. Heads turned to him with questioning looks. He shrugged. "Xander, you were never this into books before Halloween. Willow's taking more chances, talking back to Cordy and others," he turned to the girl in question, who seemed to be about to protest, "You _are_, Willow. You're much braver than you were before. And I-" he paused and took a deep breath, rubbing his hands over his face before looking back at his friends, "I'm having a much harder time in school. I'm not as quick minded as I used to be. It's harder and harder for me to catch up."

"I can still help you study," Willow said with a smile.

"Thanks, but it's more than just that," he told her with a sad look. "Xander, you came back without having been in class for weeks and you're right on the ball. I've been here, doing my work and it's like I'm treading water. I...I just don't get it any more."

Silence fell over the group until Giles dragged them back to the conversation.

"Now, tell me, are these traits in common with your Halloween personae?" Giles asked. Jesse looked at him blankly.

"Yes," Xander replied. Jesse looked to him for an explanation. "He wants to know if we are acting more like Caramon, Raistlin and Tika, and the answer is yes, yes we are."

"I should like to investigate where you procured your disguises," Giles said, slipping his glasses back down onto his nose. Xander and Willow both looked to Jesse. He looked surprised and pointed at himself. They nodded.

"Oh, right, 'cuz I bought the costumes," he said with sudden realization. He squinted and tried to pull up the memory. "It was...um, it began with an 'E' and was two parts. E- Ephraim's? No, um, Ethan's? Maybe. Uh, Evan's? Evie's? Uh, something like that. It was on the dodgy end of Main Street."

"Dodgy?" Xander mouthed to Willow, who seemed equally confused.

"Oh dear lord, this is going to be harder than I thought," Giles said. "Why don't I look into this and you three can go home? I've got quite a bit of research to do."

The three students shrugged and started off while Giles shelved the books he had been searching through previously (including a treatise on Succubi and Incubi that would be misplaced when it was most needed later), and pulled out an entirely new selection of tomes specializing on curses, hexes and vengeful spells and the breaking thereof.

A Watcher's work was never done, even when one's Slayer had yet to arrive.

* * *

><p>Harmony walked into her house, only to find Darla sitting at the table eating milk and cookies with her mother. She suppressed her first instinct, which was to lash out and decapitate the vampire.<p>

"Hi Harm!" Darla said in a perfect SoCal accent, giving the succubus a cute little wave. "Your mother was so nice in _letting me in_! She even said_ my friends and I could do anything we wanted_ while I was here."

Harmony clenched her teeth so hard, her jaw squeaked.

"Ah, Darla, why don't we go outside in the nice, bright sunlight? Perfect time for a walk," Harmony replied with a perfect smile almost as sunny as the sinking sun.

"Oh, but your mother put out such a spread, I wouldn't want it to go to waste," Darla said before lowering her voice. "Or her..."

"Harmony, Honey-bunch, I'm so glad you made it home in time!" her mother said, waving excitedly for the neo-succubus to come sit down. "I made mint-chocolate-pistacio cookies!"

"They're my favorite, Mom, thank you," Harmony said, biting off a piece of the still warm-from-the-oven cookie. It was a _divine_ recipe. She glanced into the next room and noticed several other figures in the shadows. "Mom, I'll be right back."

The two lurking vampire minions were looking at her father hungrily as he ate some of her mother's cookies in the living room. Sneaking up behind them, she latched her claws into their necks and opened a magical doorway, tossing the vampires through. Their screams as they burned up in the sunlight were abruptly shut off as the dimension door closed off.

Harmony sat back down at the table with Darla and her mother. "Sorry mom, just saw _a couple of things that needed dusting_." She turned to stare right at Darla who froze in mid bite. The blonde vampire shot her a look as dark as she could without vamping out. "Darla, your friends have already left, you wouldn't want to be late? The sun's already going down."

"Hmm...maybe I should," Darla said.

"Aww..."Harmony's mother said with a frown, but she perked up as she gave the exiting vampire a little wave. "Come back any time!"

"Oh, don't worry," Darla said with an evil little smile to Harmony, "I will."

"Mother, why was _she_ here?" Harmony asked under the auspices of helping her mother do the dishes. Darla had already vacated the premises, but Harmony wasn't about to let her defenses down yet.

"Isn't she your friend from school?" her mother asked innocently. It should be noted that the general assumption was that Harmony had inherited her figure, hair, eyes and intellect from her mother, not including what she got from the whole Halloween mishap. Until that fateful night, observations held up that hypothesis.

"No, Mom, she wants me to join a cult," Harmony told her, acting much more like her old self. "She's a real meanie."

"Well, that's not very nice," her mother said. Her mother could be quite forceful when angered, even if she still sounded as timid as a mouse.

"If you ever see her again, I want you to go the other way," Harmony said. "I mean it, run away and call me."

"I promise," her mother said with a sunny smile. "Time for beddy-bye, isn't it?"

"Yes, Mom," Harmony said, giving her mother a little kiss on the cheek. She felt a rush of power as the Kiss begged for more. Her demon nature told her to take all of it, but Harmony was the ruler of urges, not the other way around. She walked up to her room, dropped her disguise, and flopped on the bed, wrapping her wings around her like a protective cloak. It was days like this that made her brood.

Everything went back to Halloween.


	5. Chapter 5

**Not Exactly Your Dickens Standard**

* * *

><p>"So, how long have you had the magic?" Jesse asked as they plodded along at a slow pace back towards their houses. Willow lived in the other direction and not too far, so they dropped her off while Jesse and Xander kept each other company, just in case some vampires decided to cause trouble.<p>

"I think since Halloween; I've been working much harder on it the last couple of weeks, though," Xander replied. "You do realize that anyone listening in on this conversation is going to think we're insane, don't you?"

"Yeah," Jesse said with a shrug. "Do you have the, uh-" he made a wavy motion over his face, "-the whole thing?"

"You mean, do I see death and decay everywhere I go?" Xander asked bitterly. "Yes, Jesse; yes, I do, except in reflections. I can see vampires even when they hide behind human faces. All I see is the demon inside them, not the person they once were."

"Huh," Jesse said. Xander scoffed loudly at the pondering nature of his tone.

"You say 'huh' like it isn't a big deal," Xander replied. "This is my life, Jesse. This is what I have been reduced to."

"But you have magic," Jesse said.

"Raistlin was always _your_ favorite character," Xander said through gritted teeth, unable to keep the anger from his voice. He paused, looking away, as if to capture the emotions the memories once provoked.

"I always liked Sturm. He was a knight, and he lived as he believed he should and he died as he believed he should. I could understand him. He appealed to me. He was in control of his own destiny," Xander paused again, leaning up against a tree. Jesse seemed unsure about helping him or letting him do his thing. Xander shook his head.

"I never got Raistlin, well, before Halloween, that is," he said. "That yearning for power, the disregard for his companions, his arrogance that nearly destroyed the world; it never made sense to me. Now I _know_ things he did as if they were my own actions. I have memories of wanting those things, _feeling_ those things. I remember the smell of Draconians burning alive by flames I created. I remember the stench of Solace after the dragons attacked. I remember snarling at a man who was only letting me read his spellbooks; he was doing me a favor, and I treated him like shit. That's not me, Jesse - or at least it wasn't me before. Now it's all blending and I don't know what are my feelings and what are his. I never wanted this power. I'd be perfectly happy as the guy who picks up the doughnuts."

"I-I think I understand," Jesse said slowly, stumbling over some of the things Xander had said. "I just wanted to be strong for a night. I wanted to show off. I didn't want this to happen to you, Xander. I didn't think it could."

"I know," was all Xander said. They walked along until they stood in front of Jesse's house. "Here you are."

"Are you-" Jesse began before Xander could cut him off.

"_I'll_ be _fine_," Xander said, cutting him off. It might have been the knowledge that vampires were real, or it might have been Caramon talking, but the old Jesse never would have worried. Xander knew that he couldn't let his friend turn to a smothering caregiver like Caramon did, so he stood firm. "_Goodnight_, Jesse."

"'Night," the other boy replied after a moment's hesitation. He walked inside and Xander turned to leave.

He didn't get too far before he slumped into a park bench outside one of the cemeteries, heaving, wheezing and coughing. Xander hacked and coughed as he struggled to get back the image of strength and the self-assured front he had displayed all day, but his body was too weak. He shouldn't have left home that morning; he should have been in bed recovering from the hospital. But, had he _not_ been there, his friends probably would have been dead, or worse.

But now, he was practically helpless. He had snuck out and taken a nap during recess, or else he never would have made it through the day.

As it was, he didn't have strength to make it back to his house in time for the 8pm curfew, where he was either in or the door was locked. Normally when this happened, he would stay with Jesse or Willow, but that wasn't an option at the moment. His pride wouldn't let him allow his friends to see him weak. The hospital was one thing, but he was out now.

"Whoa there, son, you okay?"

Xander looked up to see a man with a gray suit and a long white beard looking down on him.

"Heh," Xander huffed with dark humor, "that's a loaded question, isn't it?"

"Well, I suppose it is," the man said with a bit of lighter humor. "Mind if an old man sits down?"

Xander didn't say anything by made a vague accepting gesture towards the open end of the bench. The old man sat down and smiled at him in a grandfatherly sort of way.

"I know things seem hard, but that's what life is," the old man commented. Xander looked at him and realized his eyes were silver, untarnished and bright. They didn't fit the corpse like appearance the rest of him had. "There are days, weeks, sometimes even years, where it seems like the world just took a dump and you're the outhouse, but it's best not to give up."

"If I was that upset, I'd have given up as soon as the staring started," Xander replied, thinking back to how the eyes trailed after him, but refused to meet his; the people flinching away when he caught them staring. "I'm being used as a case study at Sunnydale General. It's a new '_disease'_, so they want to check it out, poke and prod at me. I'm a curious case to them, not a person. At school, I'm a freak. I was a bit of an outcast before, but it's so much worse now. They don't even have to say anything and I already know what they're thinking. They stare, they point. They shy away as if they could catch it. They don't even know what they're doing. And you're a total stranger and I don't know why I'm telling you this."

"That's human nature, fearing the unknown, the Other," the old man told him with a kind tone. "You can't blame them for falling back to their base nature, can you?"

"Of course I can," Xander replied, rasping harshly as he glared, recalling the memories. "We go against our animal nature all the time. We wear clothes to keep off the cold or the sun or the heat. We build houses. We plant crops. We make machines. Animals don't do that. Humans do. We over came that; a bunch of middle class assholes should be able to get over a kid with golden skin."

"Well, I suppose you are right to be angry," the old man said sadly. "But they are only human, and thus flawed."

"It doesn't make it any better," Xander replied.

"Mind a bit of advice from an old man?"

"Sure, why not?" Xander replied with a noncommittal shrug. The man gave a grandfatherly smile.

"Always remember that you are Alexander Lavelle Harris, not Raistlin Majere," the man explained kindly. Xander froze and didn't say anything, just stared at the man who simply ignored his reaction and continued talking. "His wants and needs aren't yours. And your wants and needs aren't his. You are two different people, who just happen to have a few common memories."

"What-how-why?"

"It's not important," he said, "but you might want to remember that Solinari is full tonight."

"But it's a new moon," Xander protested, thoroughly confused by the statement.

"Not on Krynn," the man said as he bent forward to stand up.

"Who are you?"

The man scratched his beard as he looked up at the starlit sky with a bit of amusement.

"Call me Banzif," he decided. He said it like "banzai" but with an F at the end.

"Huh? Why?"

"Because Zifnab and Zanfib were already taken and you're not a kender," the man said with an amused twinkle in his silver eyes.

"Wha-huh?" Xander asked, suddenly opening his eyes. The man was gone. In his place was a brunette policewoman shaking his arm.

"Kid, wake up," she said.

"What happened?" he asked, wiping a bit of blood and drool from his lips as he sat upright.

"You fell asleep," she said. "I don't know when you got here, but it's 1 A.M., almost. These streets aren't safe at night."

"It was a little after dark when I got here," he muttered. "That was a dream?"

"Do you need a ride home? I can call one in," she said, helping him to his feet. She winced not because of the color of his skin, but by the thinness of his arms.

"I'll be fine, it's just a little further," he said taking a step along the way. "Was I dreaming all that?"

He got a little further down the street before the cop called him again.

"Hey kid," she called, not to loudly to disturb the locals. "You forgot your stick."

Xander turned around just in time to see her hold up some sort of walking stick. It had some cloth on one end that was tied together below the end with a leather pouch dangling from the tie. She ran over and shoved it in his hand before he could speak. He looked down on it and then back up, but the policewoman was gone, her foot steps echoing off into the darkness. Being quick of foot was no doubt a survival trait held by many Sunnydale law enforcement personnel - especially those on the night shift.

Curiosity getting the better of him, Xander tugged at the leather string holding the cloth together. Picking apart a few knots, the cloth fell away revealing an orb set into a claw made of gold. Confused and awed, Xander sat down and watched the light from the street lamp play over the orb and claw, the tiny metal scales reflecting little bits of light every which way. The orb, cut from pure crystal with no noticeable blemishes, was faceted so that prismatic dots littered the area with light refracted from the streetlamp. Recognizing it from his memories, Xander held the staff high and slammed the butt end down on the ground. "_Shirak_!"

Cool, blue-tinted light filled the area as bright as daylight. Xander had to squint as his eyes became adjusted to the sudden luminosity, and only a noise behind him forced him to notice the vampire burst into flames behind him. He spun around, watching as the figure writhed around, enshrouded in flames that consumed skin and flesh. Bits of metal in pockets and the like fell to the ground as the cloth containing them was consumed. The exposed flesh went first, the clothing catching second, but all that remained in contact with the vampire turned to dust when the face had dissolved to the point of no return. A cloud of dust sprang up, getting into Xander's lungs, prompting the hacking cough that had become so familiar.

A pale-faced Xander looked at the pile of ash and coins then back at the Staff of Magius with confusion and astonishment. Glancing around to see if there was another vampire close, he bent down to scoop up the coins, belt buckle and other metal bits that had fallen from the vampire. They were surprisingly cool to the touch. He stood up and became aware of more movement beyond his range of vision.

"Enough for a cup of coffee," Xander muttered as he tucked the coins into a pocket. He caught a bit of movement out of the corner of his eye.

"Suddenly the dream/not-a-dream issue isn't that important," he said, glancing around to where other vampires skulked along the very boundaries of his Staff's light. "You vampires suck. I mean, really, and not just in that bloodsucking sense, either."

He shrugged at the multitude of hisses that garnered, but he started to walk towards his house, the Staff of Magius hitting the ground in counterpoint to his footsteps. He could hear the screams of those who got too close to his light, thinking trees would protect them. It was fine for them if they stayed in the shadows, but the Staff was taller than Xander, so he cast a rather small, localized shadow, giving them basically no cover to get close. Xander didn't hurry as he walked back to his house.

The door was locked, as was usual and expected at this time of night. He could have done as he had done before he knew of Sunnydale's nightlife, but that just wasn't enough for him these days. Remembering the commands of the spells he memorized the morning before, he softly hit the door with the tip of the Staff, whispering an arcane phrase. There was a click as the tumbler rolled, unlocking the door. He stepped inside, locking the door behind him. His father was passed out on the kitchen table, an unfinished glass of whiskey with one of those plastic novelty ice cubes still in his hand. A quick glance to the living room revealed his mother passed out in a recliner, the TV still on.

If circumstances had been different, he might have been flattered that they were so worried about him that they stayed up waiting for him, but Xander was jaded enough to know they had just passed out drunk like they usually did. It was probably a miracle that the door had been locked before the booze started flowing.

Xander walked over and pulled the whiskey glass from his father's hand and dumped it down the drain. The bottle was corked and tucked back inside the glass cabinet. He walked into the living room and took his mother's tumbler and repeated the process. Then he gathered up a couple of blankets and tucked them in where they lay.

Wearily, the strength his bit of sleep gave him vanished as he walked up the stairs to his room. He fell on the bed, unable to muster up the energy to even take off his clothes. His eyes closed and Morpheus took him far away.

* * *

><p><em> Tonight, Alexander Lavelle Harris walked into my study. He wore robes of all four colors: the white of Solinari, the red of Lunitari and the black of Nuitari as well as the browns of apprentice mages not yet having taken the test in the Towers of High Sorcery. My assistants noticed his close physical resemblance to a mage of particular infamy and shied away, some already starting the rumors that the Archmage of the Shoikan Grove had a son.<em>

_ "What am I doing here?" he asked me as he watched me write. I glanced up and looked him over._

_ "Sit down, Alexander," I said, my hand continuing to record. "There is much to speak of."_

_ "Oh? Okay, does this have anything to do with Fiz-er 'Banzif' visiting me earlier?" Xander asked me. Nodding, I looked him in the eye, an act that seemed to disturb him. This was primarily because his appearance is rather disquieting to the average mortal._

_ "It has everything to do with Paladine's visit," I said, still writing. "You have had some time to get used to your situation and it has been given to me to record your life, your choices and how they impact other events." He shuffled nervously in the chair across from my desk as he glanced at all the scrolls and books surrounding him on every wall. _

_ "Shouldn't it be Jesse? He was the one who bought the costumes," Xander asked me as he attempted to come to a decision upon the reality of our meeting._

_ "Jesse McNally's decision is not the only one that is different," I told him. "Your decisions will_ _have more impact due to your power."_

_ "I don't think that casting a few spells is enough to-"_

_ "The power I speak of is not that of arcane magic," I replied, cutting him off. "You have choices to make. Some should be made soon, but others can wait."_

_ "Wait, what choices?"_

_ "You will know when the time comes," I said as I continued writing. _

_ Alexander Lavelle Harris left my study much more abruptly than he arrived._

* * *

><p>"Hello Xander," said a woman's voice.<p>

He looked up to see her. Pale skin, dark eyes and hair that seemed to be made of night itself while still containing tints and shades, shimmering as if her hair were of all colors and of none. She sat on the edge of his bed and turned to look into his eyes. She trailed a finger along his jawline, leaving a trail that tingled as her finger passed, allowing him to feel her touch long after her fingers left his skin. "Young, ambitious wizards are rather impressive, aren't they?"

Xander didn't say anything. Unlike his other two encounters, this woman terrified him. She radiated power and menace. She terrified him, and yet a part of him yearned for the power she promised.

"You are mine, Xander Harris," she whispered into his ear, her voice like spider webs spun in his mind. "You know it. You might wear red robes for now, but you shall one day be the greatest of my knights. The power you'll hold will be great, but I can give you more. No one will be able to get in your way. Those who laugh at you will fear you. Those who stare now will worship you, once you come into my power."

She moved very close, looking him right in the eyes. He could feel her breath on his lips as she held his head in her hands, but their lips never touched, only came ever so close. Her palms burned his skin, but left him wanting more. He wanted to touch her, but his body wouldn't respond. He blinked, then sat up in shock, looking at the birds chirping outside the window in the early morning sun.

He glanced around, but there was no one there. Save for him, the room was empty. He shivered as the last tingle of the woman's touch left him.

Now that she was gone, he felt sick, like an addict going through withdrawal. He had felt so strong and now he felt so weak. He put his feet down on the floor and felt the bones creak as he put his full weight on them. He felt like he hadn't slept a second as his vision grayed and he sat back down quickly as a wave of nausea passed over him. He took deep, slow breaths and the feeling slowly went away. Xander closed his eyes and shivered once more, not really sure how much of it was real and what was self-delusion.

He glanced at the Staff in the corner. It was right where he had left it the night before. He reached out a hand and the Staff flew into it. Xander caught it on reflex. The sound it made as it hit his palm was almost painfully familiar, like an old lover who called up out of the blue. He ran his hands over the wood. It wasn't polished, but carved so finely that few would be able to tell the difference. Just like in his memories of Raistlin, the dragon claw holding the orb looked like it could have been alive just moments before. Reluctantly, Xander set it down beside him. He pulled out his spellbook and began to read.

While it was a habit he had originally garnered from Raistlin, the act of reading a spellbook and immersing one's self into the Language of Magic was a relaxing form of meditation. Even with the mental effort Xander put into cramming every spell into his brain, he still felt refreshed, complete even, when his efforts were finished. The more he read, the easier it became for some of the simpler spells, allowing him to shrink his study time each morning. He was not yet at the capability of Raistlin, or other mages of his ability, but Xander was growing in power at an unprecedented rate, primarily due to the knowledge of magic he inherited from Raistlin. He could manage one of the more powerful spells, but none of the greater abilities that Raistlin could manage. He could summon flame on his hands, but the ranged damaging spells, those he just couldn't manage for some reason - or at least not yet. The most difficult spell he managed to cast was "Knock," the spell he used to unlock the front door the previous night.

As he turned the pages, he realized that some were more difficult to cast due to the required components and the availability thereof. He couldn't even make the slightest sense of the later section that included the copy of the Spellbook of Fistandantalus. Though he managed to make his way through the words, understanding escaped him.

He snapped the book shut as soon as he was done, buckling the cover and tucking it into his pouch. A few minutes later, he was done packing and out the door. Where it used to take him fifteen minutes to get to the school, it now took an hour. Almost as soon as he made it past the gates, Principal Flutie was at his shoulder.

"I've thought about what you're going through and I realized that you probably haven't talked to a councilor yet, so I arranged for one," the principal said, keeping pace with the slower Xander. The man's hands were moving to accentuate his words. "Here's the room number. We're doing this because we feel that you deserve a hug, but there won't be any hugs, because we're very strict on respecting personal space."

Xander looked at the paper in his hand with confusion.

"Just, Mr. Harris, why are you carrying a big stick with a crystal ball at the end?" Bob Flutie asked, looking up at the tip of the Staff of Magius.

"It keeps me safe," Xander said simply, a wry smile touching the corners of his lips.

"You do know our policy about weapons, right?" Flutie asked worriedly.

"Even if it was used as a weapon, I wouldn't be able to swing it," Xander reminded him. Truth be told, Xander had forgotten that he'd brought it until the principal brought it up. He hadn't actually intended on bringing it on fear that it would be stolen; the setting was pure gold after all.

"Just as long as you don't hit anyone with it, I'll be okay with you keeping it," Bob Flutie replied. "We can just call it a medical aid."

"That would work perfectly," Xander said with a smile.

* * *

><p>Xander was almost half way to the library when Jesse ran up behind him.<p>

"Xander! How'd you get here? I went to your house, but your parents said you never made it back last night," Jesse blurted, his tone revealing his panic. Xander looked on his friend with those eyes. There wasn't any humor in them in the slightest.

"My _parents_," he said the word as an epithet, "were stone dead drunk when I got in last night, so it's no wonder they thought I never got there."

It was true, if not exactly what Jesse meant.

"Oh," Jesse said, looking at his feet.

"You don't need to pick me up," Xander said. "I'm weakened, not helpless."

"It's just-I worry," the taller boy explained. Xander glared at his friend; his face full of fury and indignation. His mouth opened several times in an attempt to voice his outrage, but in the end the young wizard just spun and marched away.

Jesse stood stunned, not quite sure what he said to offend his long time friend.

* * *

><p><em>Thanks again GreyWizard for all the help. This would be much less sane without it.<em>


	6. Chapter 6

.

.

**Xander of the Red Robes**

**Chapter Six**

.

_Never Trust Harmony_

* * *

><p>Xander stormed into the library in a silent tempest of a mood. He threw himself into a chair and waited for Willow to show up. Giles, already there and investigating what could have attracted vampires to a school of all places, was rather alarmed when the man tossed his bag onto the table and then fell into a wracking cough. While he used a handkerchief this time, the blood was bright against his gold lips when he sat back up, gasping for breath, the act of coughing utterly exhausting him.<p>

"Xander, are you alright?" the librarian asked. The boy turned on him with such a glare one would think he was trying to cast a curse with his eyes. "There's no need for that, I was only concerned for your well being."

"My well being," Xander rasped and snarled. "My well being seems to be the most popular topic of conversation these days. Except if you're my parents, then you avoid the situation because some idiot doctor said you were to blame."

"What do you mean?" Giles asked, leaning against one of the banisters, shutting the large tome in his hands.

"The doctors, in their infinite stupidity, believe this is a genetic disorder," Xander said with a gesture to encompass his appearance. "So with that in mind, why not crawl inside a bottle where you can't see the world? Good thing they only had one kid, right? Can't blame them for pretending he doesn't exist, right? As long as they're so drunk they can't see, they can't see their mistake. Me."

"You seem rather...bitter about your situation," Giles put it, attempting to be delicate, but not quite succeeding.

"Of course I am! And now Flutie wants me to see a councilor, even though I can't say: 'guess what, I have great magical powers and a cough that makes me almost want to die, surprise!' without sounding insane," Xander ranted.

"I have been thinking of your curse," Giles said. He moved around to the other end of the table where he'd left a pile of books the night before. "I was attempting to find a counter curse, however, I also wanted to look into why a group of vampires would be visiting the school, and how they got in during daylight."

Xander looked at the older man with equal parts confusion and amazement. Giles seemed to get nervous at the look and turned away.

"You are not, the, ah, the only one to have had issues where magic comes into play," Giles said. He glanced at the boy and saw the questions he wanted to ask written in Xander's expression. "I would rather not speak of the specifics at this time. However, I do have resources you do not, perhaps I can help you in that regard." He handed the younger man a large dark tome, pages yellowed in age. "Do be careful with this, it rather difficult to replace." Xander grasped the book with hands that seemed to well respect the age of books. He brushed a hand across the leather cover before looking up at the librarian.

"You do realize that with a blank book and a couple of spells, I can copy this exactly with every single dot of ink in place," Xander said with a bemused smile. "So long as it isn't a magical text."

"Magical text?"

"Magical writing is different," Xander said. "It takes a greater amount of effort, but it can be done, it just takes time, a lot of time."

Giles slipped into a seat across from the boy and pulled off his glasses. He leaned back in the chair and seemed to stare off into space. "It seems that the style of spellcasting that you inherited from this...Raisin?"

"Raistlin," Xander corrected instantly.

"-Raistlin, is quite a bit different from that which I have experience with," Giles commented. He had Xander's full attention. The older man shrugged a little and adjusted himself in the chair. "Most witches and warlocks that I am familiar with invoke certain deities and demons to assist them in their attempts at casting spells. Some spells directly call upon the power of specific creatures. There is often a cost, something that they, the demon or deity, gains in return."

"That isn't so different," Xander said, looking down at the pouch of his hoodie where his spellbook resided. "Mages, wizards, from Raistlin's world, with a few specific exceptions, gain their power from the Gods of Magic: Solinari, Lunitari and Nuitari. These correspond with the White Moon, the Red Moon, and the Black Moon. I follow the Red Moon." Something occurred to Xander. "I need a calendar."

"A calendar? Right now?"

"Yes, before I forget, and a red pen and, well, I guess a silver one would be hard to find, but a black one would work," Xander replied. Giles pulled a monthly school calendar from behind the librarian's desk and handed it to the boy. He had a red pen, and handed that over as well. Xander grabbed them both and started scribbling on each day. He muttered under his breath about gibbous and waxing and waning, slipping into a language that Giles didn't recognize. Before long the school calendar had been filled with two moon shapes for each day, one in black ink and one in red.

"Xander, what are you doing?" Giles asked with a bit of force.

"On Krynn, the moons guide the magic of wizards, and to a lesser degree, bards, hedge wizards and witches, although they are slightly different circumstances," Xander began. "There are three moons. The three orders of High Sorcery are the White Robes of Solinari, the Red Robes of Lunitari, and the Black Robes of Nuitari. When a moon is full, a wizard's power is high, when a moon is new, the wizard's power is low. That's an over simplification, but it's a basic grasp of the situation."

"So, you are writing down the phases of two moons in the hopes of tracking the peaks and valleys of your power?" Giles inquired, looking over the boy's shoulder at the plotted map. "Have you considered that you might actually be working off the rules of magic from this world, rather than that which Ras al-"

"Raistlin, Ras al Ghul is a Batman baddy," Xander corrected.

"Right, Raistlin, rather than Raistlin's world?" Giles asked.

"Yeah, I thought about it," Xander asked. "Except, the only magic I know is from Krynn."

"Krynn?"

"Raistlin's world."

"Oh. ... Very well, continue please."

Xander nodded and pulled out his spellbook. Licking the tip of his finger, he opened it to the first spell page beyond the inscription. He moved a hand over the obscure and arcane text so Giles could see. "This is real to me," he said, running a finger along the curved lines. "This makes sense. I read the words and move my fingers and toss a few materials here and there, and I get an effect." He pointed to the Staff of Magius that stood against the banister. "I have a magical artifact that comes from Krynn, two if you count my spellbook." He held up the book for Giles to get a better look at. "This is real to me; it tells me that I got something in exchange for my eyes and my body, that it wasn't just some cruel twist of fate or the whim of some god with too much time on his hands. I need this. This is the only thing keeping me sane, giving me hope." Xander suddenly looked far older than his years, as if the curse had done much more than simply take his health, but his youth as well.

"Is this why you never repressed?" Giles asked quietly. "I've talked to many others of this town and they have ignored what happens. You didn't, you three in particular."

"I've seen too much," Xander whispered. "I see death all the time; there was no way I could unsee what I have seen. To me, everyone is a zombie or a vampire. To my eyes, all is replaced by death and decay. I could have believed the doctor, that I was insane, that I was hallucinating, but why would anyone _want_ to be insane? I mean, if you have a choice, wouldn't you choose to be a wizard with a curse rather than being a mental patient in dire need to be locked away from the world?"

Giles wasn't sure what to say about that.

* * *

><p>Harmony was in a foul mood as she stormed into the school. Those damn vampires had been waiting for her at home. Her idiot mother had invited them in and was serving Darla cookies. The conversation had been full of threats and innuendo that Harmony would never have understood if Halloween hadn't increased her mental capacity.<p>

The blonde demon strode purposefully into the awaiting classroom and flopped herself down in a chair, realizing a moment later that Xander of all people was occupying the next seat. Beyond him were the other two rejects in the trio that had nearly killed her that night. She sniffed as if she smelled something that belonged in a septic system.

Xander glanced at her and raised one silvery eyebrow at the succubus, noting the strange double image of her present self, but with slight changes of coloring at times. She was also wholly alive. There was no mask of death surrounding her, only that strange double image. There was also something else, beyond the norm that seemed to call to him, grasping at his mind, but with a bit of concentration, the feeling was pushed aside.

Xander considered what it meant and searched both his and what was left of Raistlin's memories. There was something about a double image, but he couldn't place it. It was important, something that was just out of reach, but it was very important. He shook his head of the thoughts and focused on Biology with Doctor Gregory. He followed the strangely mutated Cordette towards the door at the end of class, but was stopped by the good doctor.

"Xander, a word, if I may?" he said, carefully taking off his glasses and placing them in a case. Xander stopped in the doorway, keeping himself up with the Staff. The Doctor motioned towards a recently emptied stool. Willow waited for the young man at the doorway, but Dr. Gregory shook his head. The biology teacher caught her gaze and nodded down the hall. "Move along, Miss Rosenberg, I'm sure Mr. Harris will be fine with me."

Willow glanced at Xander for confirmation and he nodded, perhaps a little too sharply. With a worried look, she shuffled off towards their next class.

"Now Xander, I see you were able to catch up while you were in the hospital?" the teacher asked as he leaned back on the lab table. Gregory clasped his hands in front of him and looked down at the young man. Xander nodded, pausing to cough into his hand. Gregory handed him a paper towel that Xander took gratefully. "Nasty cough there, do you have medicine requirements?"

"An inhaler, but it doesn't work," Xander rasped as he clutched his staff. "There are some herbs that help, but Flutie was quite strict about how that wasn't allowed."

The biology teacher frowned slightly. "Yes, I'm not surprised," he said.

"Not that kind of herb," Xander clarified.

"Right," Gregory said with a nod. "I wanted to talk to you about your grades."

Xander looked up sharply. "I'm flunking?"

"Quite the contrary, actually," Gregory replied. "You're doing better than you were before, quite a bit better. But I shouldn't be surprised considering who you're friends with."

"I didn't cheat off of Willow," Xander replied sharply, glaring up at the man. While Xander was technically taller, he was hunched, exhausted and it served to make him appear smaller.

"I did not mean to imply that you did, only to suggest that if you study together it only makes sense that your grades would improve. Miss Rosenberg has a rare talent in being both a genius and able to explain complex ideas to the layman; you'd be surprised how seldom those two go together," Gregory replied. "But your work speaks for your own ability as well. I feel you're living up to the potential I saw in you when you first came into this class."

Xander was stunned that anyone would have that kind of faith in him. "Really?" he asked, looking not at the teacher, but down at his feet as if he couldn't believe the man's words.

"Yes," the biology teacher said succinctly. "However, I would like to warn you that not all of the faculty and administration agree with my impression of your abilities."

"Why am I not surprised?" Xander muttered darkly.

"The vice-principal is perhaps the most vocal. Mr. Snyder in particular is planning on 'exposing' your 'cheating' and I felt it was best to warn you of the possibilities," Gregory explained. The annoyance in the bio teacher's eyes was replaced by kind concern. "Xander, I see many students in here. Many Students. I have been teaching here and there for nearly twenty-five years after all, and one thing that I've seen in your particular generation is a lack of scholastic ambition. It's something I've come to dislike quite a bit, seeing young people discard their talents for the sciences and I'm proud of you putting that extra effort in, even if it was a tragedy that prompted your change of heart. Please keep up the good work."

Xander said nothing for quite a while before glancing away from the older man's gaze. "Thank you," he said quietly, his voice still raspy from his recent coughing fit.

"Best get to class," Gregory said, handing him a blue slip of paper. Xander took the hall pass with a look of confusion. "For if Snyder gives you any trouble for being late."

Xander gave the teacher one last nod and shuffled out the door, pondering what the man had said. Xander Harris was not used to praise. No one was in his family. Depression and angry alcoholism ran in his family and that only helped to make flaws more apparent. Xander had been yelled at for many thing for a long time, almost as long as he remembered. To get something like that from a man who was nearly a stranger was so far outside of Xander's experience that it threw him for a loop. Eventually, by the time he arrived at his next class, Xander decided that he liked the praise and walked for a while with a smile on his face, not caring that he ended up five minutes late for class.

* * *

><p>That evening, after classes had finished for the day, Xander made the torturous journey from one end of the school, namely the school locker rooms, to the library. Giles was there with a good fifteen tomes of various ages arrayed on the table with multiple pieces of paper marking other sections. His glasses were off his nose, hanging from his hand as he stared at the text in his hands and the librarian paced the room, unaware that he had gathered an audience.<p>

"I found another book, but I don't know if it's going to help," came a familiar voice from the stacks. Jesse walked out with a hardcover with colorful images. Slightly startled at the sound of his voice, the librarian looked up sharply then visibly relaxed as he realized who it was. "It's got lots of stuff on knights and witches though."

Giles' brow furrowed slightly when he looked at the book. "Ah, Jesse?" he asked.

The boy looked up surprised. "Yeah?"

"That's a JW Waterhouse art book.," Giles corrected. Xander winced at how dumfounded his friend looked.

"Oh," Jesse said, flipping to the cover. "Oh, yeah, it is."

It was apparent that not only Xander was showing increased changes in behavior.

Willow looked up from behind a stack of books on the table and smiled widely.

"Hi Xander!" she greeted perkily with a wave. "Giles has a lot of really cool books and we're trying to figure out what's going on in this town."

Xander nodded back and settled down in a chair along side her, propping his Staff against the banister. The thing stood out like a wasp in an ant colony and his friends' eyes widened at the sight of it.

"Xander, is that-" Willow cut herself off, not sure if she wanted to really know the answer. Jesse goggled for a moment before his brow furrowed in worry. Giles looked up at the uncomfortable silence in the room, glancing between the three teens. He followed their gaze towards the staff Xander had been wielding all day.

"Why didn't you notice earlier?" Xander whispered. "I've had it all day."

"I thought that turned back into plastic," Willow said, her blue eyes wide with surprise.

"It did," Xander replied. "This is real."

Eyes widened further at that explanation. Xander felt all eyes on him and it made him uncomfortable, more so than those of his classmates, because these were his friends. He knew any discussion of his visions or dreams from the night before would quickly go down paths he didn't want, so he changed the subject.

"Does anyone know why Harmony would have two faces?" Xander asked.

"Because she's a two-faced B-I-T-C-H," Willow spelled in a conspiratorial tone.

"Oh dear lord," Giles bemoaned. "I'd like to think we're too old for spelling our words."

"Bitca?" Jesse and Xander replied. Apparently the mage's new found intelligence was not expansive in all fields and spelling seemed to be one of them. Or at least it was until Xander spelled it out in his head and realized the real meaning. He shook his head. The topic was successfully diverted, so he delved back into the fray.

"Harmony looks different to me," Xander elaborated. "She has two faces, the one she shows everyone and the one behind her mask."

"And Harmony is...?" Giles asked.

"Cordelia's minion," Willow replied with a nod. "She's a meany."

"I also think she's a demon, maybe even the one we fought on Halloween," Xander replied.

Giles watched the expressions on the three teens. Willow was indignant and a little angry. Xander was a bit stonefaced, but his golden eyes shown with a touch of rage. Jesse blushed and glanced away in shame. The librarian gave the teens a questioning look and Willow quickly jumped in, giving her own rendition of the story of Halloween.

"And Xander, why do you suspect she is a demon?" Giles asked.

"Because she doesn't look like a corpse to my eyes," Xander replied bluntly. "She shows no decay and even vampires show their inner demon to me. I see everything in a form of decay. There is no choice in this. Unless I see your reflection or a photograph I see you as a walking corpse."

"Oh," Giles said, cleaning his glasses. "Quite right. So, suspicions as to type of demon?"

"Succubus," Xander, Willow and Jesse replied in unison.

"Oh," Giles repeated.

"They're soul sucking slut-demons, so you know, it kinda makes sense where Harmony is concerned," Willow said. She blushed slightly in shame. "I just said slut."

"Yes, watch that potty mouth of yours, Wills," Xander chided playfully from his chair. She giggled slightly and looked back at her book. Xander turned towards Giles. "There's something I've been wondering, how do you know about all these vamps and such?"

Giles looked at the teens for a moment before answering.

"Well, the truth is, I'm something of an occultist," Giles started by explanation, a finger pushing his glasses up his nose. "I study the things that go bump in the night. I occasionally combat them if necessary, although I'm missing a key element of that equation at the moment." He leaned back against the railing of the steps to the stacks and tapped a book in his hands. The librarian leaned back and explained how the world was older than they knew, how the old ones were chased away. He explained the theories of the vampire's origin and the situation today, leaving out the Slayer mythos.

"So do you know why we had vamps hanging around in a mostly deserted school last night? Or why they attacked me on my way home?" Xander asked, ignoring the worried looks on his friends.

"You were attacked?" Giles asked worriedly. "How did you...?" He trailed off, hoping beyond hope that he wasn't in the presence of a vampire mage, no matter how neophyte he might be. Xander sighed and stepped into the sunlight, hefting his staff as he walked. Giles let out a sigh of relief.

"As to how," Xander said, holding his Staff perpendicular to the floor, he grinned. "Shirak!"

The room was flooded with light, the color of a nice sunny day in southern California. Giles walked forward and touched the large crystal, realizing it gave off no heat.

"The Staff of Magius," Xander replied. "An elegant weapon from a more civilized time."

"How?" Willow asked sternly, realizing that her attention had been diverted once before and she wasn't about to ignore it again.

"I had a visit from a crazy old man who called himself Banzif," Xander explained. At the confused looks, Xander walked up to the blackboard and wrote down the name. Then he wrote three other names, all with the same letters in different combinations. One began with "F" and two began with the letter "Z."

"Oh," said Jesse in understanding.

"Oh," said Willow in fear and amazement.

"Oh?" asked Giles in confused befuddlement.

The three shared a look.

"Maybe we should just have you read the books," Xander said, making his way to the stacks. There was a long moment of silence as Xander moved out of sight amongst the tomes.

"..."

"Guys?" Xander called out from somewhere in the dewie decimal system.

"Yeah?" Jesse called back from the table.

"Where's the fiction section in this place?"

* * *

><p>Xander had successfully completed his small side quest [Give the Watcher the DragonLance Books] but he was just about done for the day. Unlike other days, Xander wanted to just go home and sleep for the next twelve hours. He was starting to learn the consequences of overtaxing his already weak body and exhaustion was just one of the side effects. The worse off the young red robed wizard was, the more weak he felt and from there it was a slippery slope. It was definitely time to go take a nap. Xander was just about to turn a corner when a hand reached out from the other side and hauled the young man into a janitor's closet.<p>

The person was physically stronger than he was and manhandled himself against the wall. The attacker's skin was smooth, though and had a scent to it Xander associated with women's shampoo.

"When I fantasized of being dragged into a janitor's closet, this wasn't what I had in mind," Xander snarked. His attacker only tightened her grip.

"How do I keep the vampires out of my house!" the attacker.

"Don't invite them in," Xander replied as he attempted to push himself off the wall, but the woman held him fast.

"They're already invited!" the woman said.

"Harmony," Xander commanded in a tired tone. "Let me down."

"Uh, I'm not Harmony," Harmony said.

"Harmony, let me down or I'll melt your face off with an Acid Arrow," Xander growled as he rolled his face away from a bottle of particularly caustic cleaning supplies. Harmony, while smarter from her Halloween experiences, still couldn't lie when scared, even if the fear this time wasn't for herself. With a bit of a hissing growl, she dropped the young mage on his feet. Xander straightened his clothes, grabbed his Staff and turned around to look the taller one in the eye. She was only taller because he was hunched over slightly. Ever since Raistlin's first visit, Xander had developed a tendency to slouch, making him appear shorter and his frailness of body didn't help the image. He blinked twice before speaking. "Now what the hell did you do that for?"

"You're a wizard, keep the vampires out of my house!" Harmony demanded.

"How did this happen?"

"My mother," Harmony reluctantly admitted. "One showed up saying she was my friend from school."

"I bet that went over like a sack of rocks tied to Jimmy Hoffa about three feet off a wharf," the red clad teen snorted. Xander's tone turned incredulous: "And they haven't been eaten or turned?"

"No!" Harmony demanded.

"How do you know?"

"I just do," Harmony demanded, "Now get them out of my house!"

"Your parents or the vampires?"

Harmony was about at the end of her patience and used her supernatural charm to enchant the young man. But Raistlin, and by mystical inheritance, Xander, was no stranger to the Enchantment school of magic. Xander's raw stubbornness and force of will let the spell fly past him like breeze.

"Let me out!" Xander snarled before calling out the commands of his staff. An arcane phrase flew from his lips in a rasping whisper and threw the door open. Harmony barely felt the spell other than a small flutter of her hair. "I don't know what you are, but I'm not doing anything with you between me and the exit."

Her eyes seemed to flash with a touch of red, but Harmony, or whoever she was, stepped out of the way. Keeping the Staff of Magius between him and the blonde, Xander made his way to the janitor closet's room. "Now, I was just about to leave school so I was home in plenty of time, but instead we're going back to the library."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Harmony snarled.

Xander looked at her with his cold, golden eyes. He didn't say anything. He just locked her gaze with his. She held out for a time, but sagged.

"Fine," she grumbled.

Though it wasn't far, the trip to the library was at an almost painfully slow pace for the blonde. Xander never rushed, simply put one foot in front of the other, one at a time, in perfectly timed steps. Harmony, never having been a patient person even before her transformation, was even less possessed of patience as she always allowed her lusts to command her actions. Xander apparently didn't care. For him it was just a relaxing, meditative walk with two short strides and the thump of his staff on the carpeted floor. By the time the library's double doors were in sight, Harmony was about ready to pull her hair out from the roots. Not that it would do anything considering her current hair wasn't even real, but it was the principle of the thing. With a wave of his hand, Xander allowed the doors to open before him, a simple legeriman that served to make him seem greater, more impressive.

Giles, pulled up to the desk in the middle of the room, had his glasses on his head and his nose in a book. Xander lifted an eyebrow at the title. "Uh, Giles?"

The librarian jumped from his seat. "Oh, yes, Xander," he said, carefully setting the book down. "What is it? I thought you had left for the day."

"A bit of an issue," Xander said. "But really, _Time of the Twins_ might not be the best one to start with. I'd recommend _Soulforge_ for a start."

"Ah, yes, but it seems that a certain Andrew Wells has had it out for the past six months," Giles explained. "What is the problem?"

"Only that the Raistlin from Legends has a huge amount of back story," Xander said. "And that's way past when he and I met up, split and went our separate ways."

"Ah, yes, yes," the librarian replied. "But what brings you and miss..."

"The demon's Harmony and she wants to keep vampires out of her house," Xander replied.

Harmony's teeth started to grind like a millwheel. Xander just grinned at the sound.

"Demon?" Giles asked with a small glance towards his office where his weapons currently resided.

"I just don't want them eating my parents!"

"Miss, if you are of a demonic nature, your parents have nothing to fear from vampires," Giles replied in a stiff tone.

"They're human! Of course vampires are going to eat them," Harmony protested. "Hell, _I_ want to eat them, and I'm not even into that kind of thing."

"So you are adopted?" Giles asked, much to Xander's amusement.

"No!" Harmony bellowed, positively scandalized. It was especially ironic that something still scandalized the girl, especially after her transformation into a creature that preyed upon people in a scandalous manner. Giles paused a moment, pulling his glasses off with one hand, pinching the bridge of his nose with the other and squeezing his eyes shut.

"Miss Hermione,

"HARMONY!"

"Yes, yes, how did vampires get in your house and why haven't they eaten your parents already?" Giles asked.

"Because they want to blackmail me into joining them!" Harmony snapped.

Giles froze and looked at her sharply, a touch of his younger personality coming to the forefront of his expression. "Join them? They're organized?" The librarian stood up and turned around, contemplating the possibilities. "That would mean they are being led by a master vampire or a greater demon... oh dear... On the other hand that would explain why I was..." He cut himself off as he realized he still had an audience and turned around. "Very well, Xander, third stack, fourth shelf from the top, Memearche's Hexography. 'The Unwelcoming' I believe it is called. Why don't you go reward their threshold while I research the possibilities?"

"Why me?" Xander rasped.

"Xander, you have shown yourself to have a remarkable talent for the arcane," Giles replied. "A simple ritual such as this should give you no problem."

"And I'll need a ride. It'll be midnight by the time I could walk there."

Giles, having been off in research land, looked up again. "What was that?"

"A ride, I need a ride," Xander said. "Harmony's house is way on the other side of Sunnydale, up the hill practically on Kingman's Bluff."

"Oh, right, sorry," Giles said. "We'll take my car."

* * *

><p>Most of a torturous car ride later:<p>

Giles, with Xander and Harmony stuck in the back, sputtered along in the librarian's Citroen. And then it stalled for the third time.

"I thought we needed to be there by night," Xander snarked as he glanced at the golden colored clouds hovering near the horizon, the setting sun just hidden behind them. "Maybe I should have just walked after all."

"My car is just having a little trouble right now," Giles replied. "We should be there in no time," he said as he turned the key and fiddled with clutch and gas. The engine turned over and then went back to sleep.

"Stupid men!" Harmony grumbled, grabbing them by their necks and teleporting them back to the Kendall residence. The three of them fell in a pile in the middle of the living room. A moment later, Giles held a dark, rough blade to Harmony's neck, a small trickle of blood running down the tip. Her eyes went wide and she took a sharp breath as she felt her first wound since halloween. It wasn't much, just a trickle, but having had skin that could repel fists and most basic knives for some time, the pain was excruciating.

"Did you _really_ think I was going to trust a demon?" Giles, or rather Ripper, hissed. "You are powerful, I'll grant you that, however, you should not have-"

He cut himself off as Harmony shifted into her true form. She was naked, long red tresses and heaving bosoms, with red scales trailing up her arms and legs to where it blended into a more human skin texture, though the color was unnatural, inhuman. Her teeth grew and her eyes flashed red with anger. With demonic grace she leapt backwards towards the door.

"Well, I was right, she was a demon," Xander said, pushing himself upright with a hand on a nearby chair, his staff having been left in the trunk of Giles' car. "Though I question her really using this as a trap. Unless this means there's still some of the old Harmony in there."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Harmony demanded as she pressed two clawed fingers to her neck wound.

"The Harmony I went to school with had a difficult time tying her shoes, which is why she wore heels," Xander replied in a scathing rasp. "If you're still the same old Harmony, you'd think this was 'a cunning plan.'"

"This is no time to quote Black Adder," Giles growled. He glanced towards the gold skinned teen who had taken a stance beside him. "Although this would make more sense if the two of you were working together."

Xander's glare was dark, twisted and full of disgust at the thought of actually teaming up with Harmony, demoness or no. "I can assure you that there is no way that I would team up with _her_."

"Why? Because I'm a succubus?" Harmony asked snidely as she inspected the blood on her finger tips.

"No," Xander said in a tone that suggested the reason should be obvious. "Because you're you. The only thing worse would be forced to team up with Cordelia."

He quickly pantomimed spitting at the thought of having to work with Queen C.

"And besides," Xander said. "The sun already went down and the house is surrounded."

Giles, Xander, Harmony and the Kendalls (who had been watching this display from the couch with dumbstricken expressions since the trio's mystical arrival), glanced outside to realize that every window and doorway was filled with the visages of esurient eyes and fangs. The vampires, ravenous and apparently allowed to enter, grinned.

"'Esurient?" Harmony's mother asked.

"All hungry like," Xander clarified.

* * *

><p><em>Much thanks be to Greywizard the Awesome for his mighty help in editing this chapter.<em>


	7. Chapter 7

.

.

**Xander of the Red Robes**

Chapter 7

_Confirming Things You've Known Since Kindergarten_

* * *

><p>"And besides," Xander said. "The sun already went down and the house is surrounded."<p>

Giles, Xander, Harmony and the Kendalls (who had been watching this display from the couch with dumb-stricken expressions since the trio's mystical arrival), glanced outside to realize that every window and doorway was filled with the visages of esurient eyes and fangs. The vampires, ravenous and apparently allowed to enter, grinned.

"Harmony?" her mother asked. "What is going on, Baby-Doll? Why are you wearing that costume?"

"And see, this is why a little trust is needed," Xander rasped before coughing blood on his sleeve. He looked up at Harmony with a glare. "And thank you ever so much for only bringing us, and not our gear."

"Yes, it seems you have a point," Giles replied. He straightened his glasses. "And what a terrible time for a watcher to be missing his Slayer."

"Slayer?" Xander asked, one silvery eyebrow cocked in interest. Any further discussion was cut off by the invasion. A quick census of their foes brought the number up to about forty. As regular humans, one was too much.

However, even lacking the Staff of Magius, Xander was not unarmed. He glanced at the Kendalls who were too busy screaming on the couch as the vampires smashed the windows in to pay much attention to him. He shrugged at them. "Sorry about the house."

He flicked a hand, and lightning flew from his finger tips. The enchanted electricity hit one particularly burly vampire and burned a hole through its chest before bouncing off the wall, and striking three more. The afflicted vampires quickly turned to dust. Several others managed to mostly avoid the bright light that ricocheted off the walls, only getting slightly singed.

"Everyone to the couch," Xander commanded. Even as the vampires closed in, Xander's will never wavered. He reached into his belt pouch and muttered something under his breath as he spun in a circle. Dust flew out to create a circle around the couch and took up most of the room. He wiggled his fingers and the dust seemed to glow for a moment.

Then Harmony was unceremoniously chucked out of the circle, as were some of the closer vampires.

"Well, that confirms one particular theory," Xander muttered as Harmony impacted the door to the kitchen.

"What theory?" Giles asked in confusion.

"What did you do to Harmony?" her mother demanded, as only being restrained by her husband prevented the woman from leaving the circle and rushing to her daughter.

"Well, I just cast Protection from Evil, 10 foot Radius," Xander replied. "Used to either trap evil in or keep evil out. And, well...I chose the latter."

"My Harmy's evil?" her mother asked with wide eyes.

"Yeah, but I've known that since kindergarten," Xander replied absently.

"How long will the spell last?" Giles asked, suddenly more willing to trust the wizard now that he was the only thing keeping the vampires from killing them all.

"A few minutes at most," Xander said with dark sarcasm.

"So when it fails, the vampires will eat us," Harmony's father said with a grim realization.

"Yeah, we're pretty much boned," Xander replied as he turned towards where Harmony was getting up off the floor. "Unless Harmony goes and _gets our gear from the car_."

The succubus stood up off the floor and glared at him. "Why should I? You threw me into a wall."

"Miss Kendall, for one, you threw yourself into a wall for being evil, and two, the entire reason you enlisted our assistance was to keep your parents from becoming vampire fodder, which is precisely what will happen to _all four of us_ if you do not _retrieve our gear from my car_," Giles replied, holding up a cross to add a bit more distance between the humans and the vampires. Harmony looked at him with confusion. He pinched the bridge of his nose and squinted his eyes shut. "If you don't bring our gear, the vampires are going to eat us."

"Oh," Harmony said. "Fine. But you owe me a unicorn poster for this!"

As she teleported away, Giles took a deep breath.

"Did she forget that she was the one to enlist our help in the first place?" the Watcher asked in frustration.

"Could, uh, someone please explain what is going on?" Harmony's father asked.

"Oh, these are vampires," Xander said. "They want to eat you. They've only gotten this far because someone allowed them in the house."

"I understand that," Harmony's father said. Harmony's mother, on the other hand, went very, very pale.

"B-but Harmy said they were a cult! She didn't say _anything_ about vampires!" the succubus' mother protested.

"And your daughter is an evil demon-succubus-thing who eats people's souls," Xander continued. "I'm guessing they-" he said as he gestured to the 36 remaining vampires that were attempting to break into the magic circle of protection "-wanted Harmony to join up because she's evil and a demoness. But Harmony said no, so they were going to turn you two into vampires to punish her."

"I don't want to be a vampire," Harmony's mother replied with a little pout. "I wouldn't be able to get a tan."

"I am rather concerned that you are taking this so well," Giles commented as he continued to wave his cross in front of him, making the undead hiss and back up.

"Well... I never really did believe all that 'gangs on PCP' crap that the papers talk about," Mr. Kendall replied. "And with our high missing persons count, it was either 'we're living in a Stephen King novel' or 'Aliens really like our town.' The fangs and thirst for blood tends to rule out the latter. Also, Harmony ending up as a demon tends to suggest more Fantasy/Horror than SciFi."

"Well, yes, we do appear to have a rather large vampire infestation," Giles said, as Xander rifled through his belt pouch, pulling out a pad of post-it notes.

The golden skinned teen looked at Harmony's parents with an expression that could only be suppressed amusement.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you love this house?" Xander asked.

"I'd say an eight, eight-and-a-half," Mr. Kendall answered quickly.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, how attached to this house are you?" Xander asked.

"The same, why?"

"How about the lower your attachment to the house, the higher the chance you'll live?" Xander asked, clarifying his question.

"One, one and a half," both Kendalls replied instantly.

"Nice to know," Xander replied smugly as he pulled off a post-it from his pad.

Giles, meanwhile, was trying to think of a way to escape. He paced around the couch cleaning his glasses and wishing he could consult his books, only to spot Xander passing a note to a vampire just outside the circle. The vampire gave him a confused look, but pulled the note from between the outstretched fingers. The budding wizard pulled his hand back as soon as the paper left his fingers. "Xander, what are you doing?"

Xander, stepping as quickly as his frail body could back towards the center of the circle and then behind the couch, shrugged. "I was just taking care of some business."

"You're not going to sell us out, are you?" Harmony's mother asked as she and the others also hid behind the couch, with that 'I-might-not-be-your-mother, but-I'm-quite-disappointed-in-you' look.

"I'm doing nothing of the sort, but sorry for the property damage," Xander replied. The other three looked confused, but followed him in his duck and cover pose.

"What's the note say?" One vampire asked as another opened the carefully folded paper.

"Um... uh- 'I prepared explosive runes this morning.'"

There was a nearly house shattering KA-BOOM as everything within ten feet of the post-it's reader turned to dust and shrapnel. Xander cast a simple shield spell as he stood between the ensuing explosion and the other humans, letting the shards of the coffee table turn into a pile of kindling in front of him. Other vampires were not so lucky. Though the spell's shrapnel did not actually hit any vampire hearts, there were plenty of puncture wounds resulting from the explosion.

"I'd just like to clarify: I actually wrote those runes yesterday, but I can't change the message once I write it, and there's no point in wasting that spell if I can help it," Xander explained. The teen took a deep breath that cut off into a series of coughs. The wizard half sat, half collapsed on the floor. The coughing subsided, but he breathed in and out in a series of rough, rasping breaths.

"That was..." Harmony's father began as he viewed the damage to that particular corner of his house.

"Impressive," Giles said. "What spell was that?"

"Explosive Runes," Xander replied, wishing he hadn't left his staff in the trunk of Giles' car. "The ultimate letter bomb."

"Can you do anything else?" Harmony's father asked. Her mother was in the man's lap as she stared in horror at what was going on.

"Not at the moment," Xander rasped, leaning back to rest his head on a couch cushion. "I don't have any other applicable spells memorized right now."

He had memorized a few select spells that would help him with self defense, but they would do little to nothing for additional people.

Truth be told, he had not been sure if the "protection from evil" spell would actually work until he tried it. Now that he was proven correct, he needed to find a way to make it permanent. Most of his other spells were either enchantments or spells to allow for information gathering. Sleep wouldn't work on vampires, nor would Charm spells. Thank goodness for stupid vampires. That trick most likely wouldn't work again, or at least not on this group of vampires.

* * *

><p>"Stupid wizard!" Harmony grumbled as she teleported back to the car. "Stupid librarian! Stupid vampires!"<p>

The car was currently rolling backwards and picking up speed. She shot out her wings and flew down the hill, easily overtaking the car. She landed on the white Citroen with a thump, denting the roof. With another grumble of indignation, she teleported again, hauling the vehicle along as luggage. Angrily, the Succubus reached inside to grab Xander's staff, only to hiss in pain as her hand closed around it.

It burned like acid on her skin and she dropped it instantly, letting the magical artifact clatter to the ground.

"I HATE WIZARDS!" she bellowed at the top of her lungs, wings out, scales covering her body.

"How about barmaids?" a voice asked, a second before a cold iron skillet slammed into her face.

Harmony went sprawling on the ground as the improvised weapon bypassed her magical defenses. She glared up at her attacker only to see little Willow Rosenberg standing over her, the skillet prepared to strike. "Forgot our houses are right next to each other, didn't you?"

"Rosenberg! What the hell are you-" her statement was cut off by another blow of Willow's improvised armament. Harmony cried out as she felt the hollow bones in her wing snap under the force.

"That's Xander's staff. What did you do to him?"

"You hit me! I got hit by a nerd? How the hell did I get hit by a nerd?" Harmony exclaimed in shock and disbelief as she pushed herself up. Willow's eyes flashed in anger and Harmony suddenly felt the unpleasant tingle of cold iron as Willow tucked the rim of her skillet under the demoness' chin.

"Yeah, I did. So _Ha!_ and stuff," Willow said in an attempt to sound intimidating. "Now _where_ is _Xander_?"

"He's in there," Harmony said, pointing to the Kendall house. Willow looked at the house just in time to see a quarter of it explode and a number of vampires turn to dust.

"He better not have been hurt in that blast," Willow growled as she pressed the skillet into Harmony's jugular, the redhead's muscles straining under the force.

"He probably caused it," Harmony replied.

"Why is your house surrounded by vampires?" Willow asked, struggling to keep from shaking with worry. Adrenalin was pumping through her veins, her pulse feeling like a rushing drumbeat as the blood circulated around. "Why is Xander in there?"

"Because I took him there so he could keep the vampires out!" Harmony snarled. She shifted back to her human form, the broken wings mending as her shape changed.

"God, Harmony, you always manage to screw up, don't you?" Willow grumbled. "You're not going to screw up this one. Cuz, if Xander dies in there, so do you. And there's nothing you can do that will stop me."

"Understood," Harmony said, standing up. She brushed off the dust from the street and glared at Willow. "Well? What are you waiting for? I can't pick up his shiny stick."

Willow, never letting her glare waver, bent down and grasped the shaft of the Staff of Magius. It was cool, but willing. Maybe it knew she only wanted to return it to its master.

"I saw you teleport with the car," Willow said. "You can teleport me in there."

"Why would I help you?" Harmony demanded, looking down her nose at the redhead.

"You really are stupid, aren't you? Because if you don't, Xander will die and I'll kill you, just like I just said I would," Willow replied.

It was almost like Tika was speaking through her. Willow was always timid, staying protected behind Xander and Jesse. Tika was a girl who beat up a draconian with a frying pan having had no prior training in any sort of combat. The girl had moxie. After Halloween, it was like Tika had passed Willow a glass of that Moxie. Willow stood up for herself and now found that she was perfectly willing to threaten to kill someone if it kept her friends safe. She stepped back and glanced at the car.

"You bring in that bag of stuff. Then you take us both in. Then you're going to go get Jesse and bring him here," she gave her instructions slowly and clearly for the plainly intelligence-challenged demoness

Harmony glared at her for a moment before relenting. "Fine. But don't touch me with the stupid stick thingy."

The Succubus reached in, hauling out the duffle bag of Giles' before grabbing Willow by the shoulder. A moment later, they were inside the house. Right in the midst of the vampires. Harmony vanished again without even taking in the situation.

"Willow?" Xander rasped in surprise.

"Xander!" she screamed as the vampires grabbed her.

"Thanks for the snack!" one taunted as it sunk its teeth into Willow's arm. She screamed as one wrapped a hand around her neck, forcing her head to one side. Only then did Xander notice the staff in Willow's hand.

"Willow! The Staff!" he said. He tried to summon it to him, but in her fear and pain, her hand was clenched around it, preventing him from doing more than giving it an ineffectual shrug. A moment before the next vampire could sink its teeth in, inspiration came to the curse boy's mind. "Willow, you've got the staff. Say it."

She looked at him, tears streaming down her cheeks as the vampire brushed her hair away from her neck. She was starting to get dizzy from the one drinking from her arm.

"You know the word, Willow! SAY IT!" Xander pleaded, mentally promising to inflict equal pain on Harmony for doing this to Willow. His eyes remained locked with Willow's. He could see the instant she made the connection.

"_SHIRAK_!" she screamed, trusting Xander fully despite the fear she held of her impending doom.

Magic is always part belief, and Willow had always believed in Xander, had faith in his abilities, even when the other students, teachers, or their parents hadn't. At her command, belief and faith overcoming her fear if only for an instant, the staff lit up with cool blue light.

Screams not her own filled the air. Claws and teeth released her as they went to cover the eyes and faces of the bloodsucking demons. She fell to her knees, her hand sliding down the staff, but never letting it go. The crystal stood tall. Those vampires unable to escape the light started to catch on fire, the exposed flesh igniting first, with the flames crawling up, their clothes adding fuel. Those farther out ran.

There are few things vampires, as a general rule, fear. The sun is one. It represents everything they lost when the demon took them over. A sudden open door that lets in the light could send even a master fleeing. Flames were the same. Vampires had no need of heat; their bodies were filled with magic blood that did nothing to quench the flames. Those that were lit on fire were paralyzed by the primal fear that they could do nothing to save themselves.

The last of their primal fears was Faith.

The belief, not the potential Slayer, though most feared her, too.

Everyone knows of how crosses repel vampires. But it's not the symbol that has the effect, it's the person behind it. The wielder of the cross believes it will repel the vampires, so he or she has faith that it will drive off the evil, sear the flesh should it touch. The same is true of other symbols of faith, of true honest belief when wielded by those who hold that faith.

A Star of David, a holy cloth, even a pancake could work just as well, if one _believed_ it would work enough.

The Staff of Magius, at that very moment, held all three of Vampires' primal fears. Willow, at that moment, had Faith that Xander knew how to save her. Her Belief allowed her to access the power that would save her. She used the Word and the Staff lit up, showering the room with the light. The light brought the final flames that saved all in the room.

None of the fangy dead within range survived the Staff. They lurked on the outskirts, or around corners that protected them, clinging to the shadows like rats to deck chairs on a sinking ship. Xander stood up and slowly walked forward. He leaned down, holding out a hand to Willow even as he took up the staff on his own.

"You're okay, Willow," he said, struggling to keep his hoarse voice reassuring. She took his hand, her muscles trembling as she haltingly stood up. She clung to him with one arm, never letting go of the Staff. Her hand slid up so it touched Xander's. Her arm was still bleeding. He could feel her blood seep through his shirt. Xander held her close even as he looked beyond her, into the growing shadows of twilight, promising pain to any of the yellow eyes he saw out there beyond the edge.

"Let me check your wrist," Giles said, gently taking the girl's arm. She clung harder to Xander's weak frame.

"Willow, let him check you over," Xander said. Willow looked into his hourglass eyes and shivered. She reluctantly let go with her arm, turning it over so all could see. Harmony's parents winced as they saw the wound bleed freely. Giles ripped a piece of his shirt and tied it around Willow's wrist. He held the pressure even as the improvised bandage stained red.

"You, sir," he said, nodding to Harmony's father. Giles pointed to the wad of cloth over the puncture wounds in Willow's arm. "Hold down on that. Keep the pressure steady. Vampires have a dangerous factor in their saliva that can prevent healing for a time."

The man pressed the wad to Willow's arm, as Xander stroked his friend's hair and whispered soothing things into her ear. The three men managed to walk Willow over to the couch and set her down. Harmony's mother was shocked at what had happened

"How much did they take?" Xander asked.

"Too much, I think," Giles replied. "We need to take her to the hospital."

"I'll call 911," Harmony's mother said, reaching for the phone. She dialed and explained the emergency, before looking up in horror. "They said they will be 25 minutes at the minimum."

"What? It takes less time to walk there!" Giles protested.

"Tell them there's no danger," Xander said with a growl as he started to stand up.

"Xander?" Willow asked tiredly, one hand tugging on the front of his hoody.

"Sit down and wait," Xander told her. "You did well. You saved everyone here. Now let me save you."

"What do you mean there's no danger?" Harmony's mother asked. "They're right out side the house."

"Not for long," Xander promised. "Tell them."

She looked at the strange young man. His face was set, no jokes at all on his face. She held the phone up to her lips again, her voice stern and uncompromising. "There's no danger, so you'd damn well better be here in five minutes or less." She listened for a minute. "Yes, I mean it." She listened for a moment more and hung up. "Five minutes."

"They _know_," Giles muttered. "They know what goes on in this town at night."

"I've got to make sure Mrs. Kendall isn't a liar," Xander said. "Giles, you and Mr. Kendall start the Unwelcoming."

"Yes, quite right," Giles said. Harmony's mother moved back to the couch and took over for her husband, keeping the pressure on Willow's wound.

"Stay safe," Willow commanded.

"You know it," Xander reassured. He turned and started walking to the shattered corner of the house.

The moment he stepped onto the remains of the lawn, two vampires who had been hiding around the shadows of the wreckage screamed as they erupted into flames. Xander spotted another running away and muttered an arcane phrase. Two arrows of flame launched from his palm, the first striking the fleeing demon in the back, the second just barely missing and hitting a wooden bench. Xander didn't really care about the destruction of public property. He turned the corner of the house and heard the scurry of vampire feet as they ran to escape the light. He saw one flee inside the Kendall home. He flicked his hand and two wooden shards of the house flew at his command. The impromptu stake flew at his command, diving deep into the intruding vampire's heart, the whole body falling to ash a moment later. He walked back inside, keeping the Staff lit.

Only then did Harmony arrive with Jesse in tow. She dumped the boy on the floor next to where she'd tossed Willow to the vampires.

"Brother, grab her," Xander said, memories of a few years as a merc springing to mind.

Jesse reacted just as Caramon would have. He jumped up, hooked his arm around Harmony's neck and slammed her onto the ground. The succubus gasped as the impact forced the air from her lungs. Jesse flipped Harmony over and grabbed her wrists behind her, easily holding both tight with one hand. With a heave, he hauled her back up so she was facing Xander. He looked at Xander and froze for a split second as he realized where they were. It had been so easy for them to fall into the same old roles.

"Here she is, Xander," Jesse said, making sure to call the other boy by the right name. Calling him Raistlin or "Brother" would not go over well in the long run.

"Boys?" the three looked up to see Mrs. Kendall still sitting on the couch with a very pale Willow. "She's my daughter. I'll talk to her."

Mrs. Kendall might not have been an especially smart woman, but she'd been raised to know right from wrong. She'd thought she'd taught Harmony the same, but her daughter clearly needed a refresher.

"Go stand in the corner, young lady!" her mother ordered, pointing to a well lit and un-destroyed corner of the room. Harmony froze for a moment, then hung her head and dutifully stood in the corner.

Eyes went wide in surprise. Willow, even when suffering from blood loss, gaped at the sight. She shared a confused and shocked look with Xander.

"Honestly! Consorting with vampires and then lying to your mother! I didn't raise you to act like that, young lady!" Mrs. Kendall reproved her daughter loudly and indignantly. "And put your clothes back on! We don't need to see you like that. And there are boys present! You should know better!"

"She's accepting this whole 'your daughter is a soul sucking demoness' a bit too easily, don't you think?" Jesse asked as he took over with Willow's wound.

"She's always been like that," Mr. Kendall replied as he and Giles walked down the stairs. "Nothing shocks her for long. My wife might not be the smartest person around, but no one can adapt to changes like her. She's pretty amazing."

"...I'll take your word for it," Xander said, incredulously. He glanced at the room as he noticed his Protection from Evil 10ft radius spell flutter and blink out before the temporary ward collapsed like a curtain of sparkling dust that vanished once it hit the floor.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Omake:<strong>

Tika was confused. Very confused. And it wasn't from having the memories of another redhead stuck in her brain that was the confusion, at least not totally. The confusion was focused on the Majere Twins.

Caramon was tall, handsome and had impressive muscles.

Raistlin was funny, with a sharp tongue and had a number of traits the barmaid remembered from Willow's Xander-shaped Friend.

Willow had been in love with Xander, who was at least partly in Raistlin. Tika was at least in lust with Caramon, who had a great deal of Jesse in him, but who Willow considered a brother.

She was too confused by everything going on.

Finally, by the light of three moons (though she could only see two of them) she came to a decision.

"I must have them both!"


End file.
